Lies and Deceit
by mayat09
Summary: Dare and Adonia join the 815 crew as they discover the island they've crashed on offers more than your average dose of mystery.
1. Background Information

Author's Note: There are two OCs that I use in this FanFic. (I'll talk more about them in the background info in just a second.) First off, this story begins at the end of season four when Jack, Kate, Sayid, Hurley, Sun, Aaron, Frank, and Desmond (plus my two OCs) are being rescued by Penny's rescue boat. Secondly, Desmond and Penny (as unlikely as this is) are only friends. (Again, I'll talk about that more in the background info.) Some of the dialogue is taken directly from the show itself, so sorry if that bothers anyone. That is all!

Background Information:

Genavieve Dare Belacqua (she goes by Dare, normally) is a 28-year-old private investigator. She's fairly short at 5' 4". She used to have long, red hair, but not soon after they crashed on the island, she cut it pretty short.

She was in foster care since she was a baby. Going from place to place (mostly in the UK, especially Scotland), she eventually ended up in Glasgow where she met Desmond. They became very close friends for four years. When she left for University in Los Angeles, they lost contact. She studied to become a PI with the notion that she would be able to find her real parents with some detective skills under her belt. She was engaged and married to Brendon Angiere, but he died a week after their wedding in a fatal car accident. She traveled to Sydney with her best friend Adonia Sterling for what Dare claimed was her and Brendon's supposed-to-be honeymoon. On their way back to LA on flight 815, they crashed on the island. Dare became exceptionally close to Charlie and Adonia fell for Jack almost immediately. Dare discovered Desmond in the hatch and they became closer than ever in the following months, though not romantically so. While on the island, she discovered the identity of her father and mother, though she didn't reveal to anyone who they were. Following Charlie's death, Dare stuck pretty close to Desmond and Adonia, not wanting to lose the only two people left on the island she cared about. After Daniel Faraday carried the first group of survivors over from the island to the freighter, Dare decided to go back to the island with Dan to get Adonia (who was with Jack). Desmond professed his love for her and they kissed. In the end, when the freighter blew up, Jack, Kate, Aaron, Hurley, Frank, Sun, Sayid, Desmond, Dare, and Adonia were the survivors in the helicopter (and life raft since the helicopter crashes because the island disappears.) The story picks up with Jack doing some quick thinking about how to protect those people on the island who were still alive.

Adonia Sterling grew up with only her mother around. She never knew her father, and was indignant about finding out who he was. She lived in LA all her life, and was successful by a young age writing, playing, and singing her own songs. She made it fairly big as a singer/songwriter in LA, though she didn't seek any big record deal. She met Dare through University in LA and they became the best of friends. She even took the place of Dare's late husband on their honeymoon to Sydney after his passing. On the way back to LA, their flight crashed and they landed on the island. She became very attached to Jack and their friendship grew tremendously during their 100 plus days together on the island. She also grew quite attached to Daniel Faraday when he and the rest of the team arrived on the island.


	2. Truth or Dare

"We're going to have to lie," Jack said. The rescue raft bobbed up and down in the oncoming wake of the rescue boat. Dare looked around and saw she wasn't the only one staring at him like he was crazy.

"Lie about what?" Kate asked.

"Everything, all of it. Everything since we crashed on the island."

"Jack, now I know I'm new to the group and everything, but isn't this the part where everyone starts jumping up and down and hugging each other?" Frank interjected.

"Your freighter, those men came to the island to kill us, all of us. You said that our plane was found on the bottom of the ocean. Well someone put it there. Someone who wants everyone to think that we're dead. So what do you think is going to happen to us when we tell them that that wasn't our plane. What do you think is going to happen to the people that we left behind?"

"Jack, we can't. We can't pull it off," Kate said, holding Aaron close to her.

"Just let me do the talking," he replied.

As the boat got closer, they heard people talking in a foreign language. Then, they heard one of them say, "Mrs. Widmore," and they saw her. It was Penny.

Dare found herself holding her breath, waiting for them to kiss, but they didn't. Desmond had told the truth, then. They were only friends. She wanted to find it hard to believe that Desmond was so happy about seeing Penny, yet they were only friends, but then she looked at Adonia. Dare knew she would react the same way after seeing her best friend for the first time in three years. It would be like coming home, after all. She was instantly grateful for having someone with her for the past hundred days that she cared so much about.

Adonia, Frank, Sayid, Sun, Kate, Aaron, Hurley and Dare all scrambled out of the raft and onto the rescue boat. Desmond and Dare hugged, knowing that now everything would change for the better. But what should have been a reception filled with laughter and excited chatter seemed drenched in tension and bitterness.

They gathered on the upper deck and continued to discuss Jack's ludicrous plan.

"Dude, they'll find out," Hurley said.

"Not if we stick to the story," Jack replied, determined.

"I don't know, Jack," Sayid said. "It could be a risk."

Jack shook his head. "It's the only way. We have to do this."

"You're still at it, huh?" Frank asked as he returned from the lower deck. He passed out drinks.

"Look, we're running out of time," Jack said. "We've got to make a decision now. So are we all okay with this?"

Sayid looked at him seriously. "This is a decision that will affect the rest of our lives. I'm not taking it lightly."

Jack looked at Adonia. "Adonia?"

She nodded. "Yeah."

"Kate?" he inquired.

"Yeah," she said.

He turned to Sun. "Sun?" and she reluctantly nodded.

"Frank," Jack said, "sorry you got dragged into this, but we need to know that you're with us."

He grinned. "Whatever you guys decide, I'll just roll with."

"And Dare? Are you okay with this?"

Dare nodded, seriously concerned.

"Hurley, what about you?" Jack asked.

"I don't think we should lie, dude."

"We need to protect the people that we left behind, Hurley," Jack replied.

"How does lying protect them?"

"It protects them from Charles Widmore. The guy hired a boatload of people to kill all of us! He fakes a plane crash! Do you think that telling him the truth, he's going to leave all of them alone?"

Hurley looked at Penny. "Look, he's your dad, right? Can't you just, like, call him off?"

"There's no calling my father off," Penny replied, shaking her head.

"But he'll never find them. I mean the island disappeared. We all saw it. It's gone. Bloop."

"You think anyone's going to believe that?" Jack asked. "Believe any of it? They're going to think you're crazy."

"Not if someone backs me up." He looked at Sayid. Sayid looked over at him and Hurley said, "Sayid, come on. They'll think I'm nuts if I tell the truth, but what if we all do? If we can stick together, we can make them believe us. I don't want to spend the rest of my life lying. Do you?"

"No," Sayid agreed. "But, I don't believe we have a choice. I'm sorry, Hurley, but we have to lie."

"You know what, dude? I'm going to remember this. And someday you're going to need my help and I'm telling you right now, you're not getting it."

Dare tapped her leg against Adonia's, breaking her friend's rapt attention on the conversation at hand. "I need to talk to you after this," Dare said softly. Adonia nodded. They waited out the rest of Jack's speech in tense silence. After he finished, Dare could feel the heat between everyone; it was obvious they didn't want to lie – Hurley, especially.

Dare stood and Adonia quickly followed behind. Dare exchanged looks with Desmond as they rounded the corner. Dare leaned over the balcony on the second deck and looked at the waves below, white with froth from the speeding boat. Adonia joined her. Dare could still see the scar on Adonia's wrist from where the ropes had cut into her when she was taken by the Others. She felt instantly guilty. The girls were silent for a moment before Dare finally spoke: "I'm not going with you to Mambata."

Adonia looked at her in shock. "What? What are you talking about?"

"I'm going to stay here with Desmond."

Adonia looked back out at the ocean and sighed, her breath carried away with the wind. "You have to come with us," Adonia said sternly, "or else Jack's story won't check out."

"I know," Dare replied. "That's why you're going to say I'm one of the people who died when the plane first crashed."

"What?" Adonia stared at her and Dare turned to face her.

"You're going to have to lie," Dare said. "You're going to have to say I'm dead."

"But, you're not! You're right here! I can't _lie_ about something like that, Dare!"

"You're doing it for Sawyer, Juliet, Miles, Daniel – all the people on that damned island, anyway!"

"That's not fair!"

"This isn't about what's _fair_!" Dare snapped. She took a deep breath and said,

"Even if I asked you to stay with me, Addie, you wouldn't. You and I both know you'd go with Jack."

Adonia closed her eyes and rubbed her fingers across her forehead. "Will I ever get to see you again?" she asked in a choked voice.

Dare's frustration melted instantly and she hugged her friend. "Of course, Addie. Of course we will! As soon as you get home and you're safe, I will call you. But first, I have to make sure I'm hidden. I'll get a new name, a new place – I love you, Addie. I'd never leave you."

The girls released each other, both crying silent tears. Adonia nodded in understanding. "What if you get caught?" Adonia asked. "A new identity? That's too difficult to pull off."

"It's my job to be secretive – I know how to tell a lie, Addie. Besides, Michael did it and never got caught. I'm just going to have to lay low for a while is all. I'm not going to be a PI anymore."

Adonia nodded again.

"You'd better get back to Jack," Dare said with a small smile. "I'm sure he needs as much moral support as he can get. You guys are about to pull off a major heist."

Adonia left. Dare stayed by the balcony, watching the first cracks of dawn begin to break through the low clouds on the horizon. After being on an island for months and months, she still wasn't sick of the water or the way it caught the light from an early sunrise.

Desmond walked up and took Adonia's place beside her. "Hello," he said. He leaned his elbows on the railing, clasping his hands in front of him.

Dare simply smiled in reply, too lost in thought to really answer.

"What did you tell Adonia?" he asked.

"The truth."

"Which is?"

"That I'm going to stay with you." She looked at him from the corner of her eye and saw him grinning. "Des, I told her she had to lie. They're going to have to say that I'm dead."

He stood up straight in shock. "Why would you say that?" he asked.

"If I go with them – If I go back, I am in serious danger," she replied. "And anyone I love would also be unsafe."

"Danger? What are you talking about?"

Dare sighed and said, "I've been working for Charles Widmore for the past three years."

This piece of news was more than Desmond bargained for. He gripped the railing hard, making his knuckles turn white. "What?" he asked desperately.

"He hired me as his PI. It wasn't just one case, though. It was little cases here and there – look up a file here, follow this person there. None of it made sense until I got to that island. Suddenly, those people that I researched showed up! Benjamin Linus, Juliet Burke, Richard Alpert – it was insane."

"You told me it was you and your late husband's honeymoon," Desmond pointed out.

Dare nodded. "I told that to a lot of people. Brendon and I hadn't set out a honeymoon yet." She smiled sadly and turned so that her back was on the railing. She folded her arms across her chest. "After working for Mr. Widmore for so long, you learn to not ask questions. So, when he told me to go to Sydney, I didn't hesitate. He even told me to bring a friend. Goddamn, he must have known it would be Adonia. Either way, he got us there.

"I told Adonia we'd be there for a month – I told her that was what Brendon and I had planned. Then, I got a call from Mr. Widmore telling me I had to be on flight 815 in a week. He told he he'd take care of everything.

"Lo and behold, a week later, our passports were revoked and we were being deported to LA on flight 815. But there was something else. When he told me I would be getting on flight 815, I asked him what was in LA. He told me I wasn't going to LA – that I wouldn't quite make it that far. He told me that wherever I landed, I was to collect information on the people around me. He knew we were going to crash on the island."

"Why didn't you tell me this earlier?" Desmond asked.

Dare shook her head. "Legally, I'm not _ever_ allowed to tell you what I just did. But, I'm no longer a PI. And I'm telling you this because I need to ask you if you're okay with hiding. I know everything Charles Widmore needs to know to get back to the island. If he found me, everyone on that island would be in danger. I know that whatever Mr. Widmore is planning for those people, it isn't pleasant. And you should know that anyone near me is in danger."

"Oh, a normal life isn't for me, anyway. Who needs that when you could be hiding from your best friend's father?"

Dare hugged him. "Thank you, Des. I love you."

"I love you, too."


	3. Flashforward

**Three Years Later**

Adonia picked up her phone and scrolled through her contacts until the name was highlighted in blue. It was a habit – an old habit, but a habit nonetheless – to call her best friend when she was feeling really down.

Kicking Jack out was the hardest thing Adonia ever had to do and she really needed a best friend more than anything. But she hadn't heard from Dare in three years. At first, Adonia was worried, then angry, and now curiosity was getting the best of her. But to find someone who could be anywhere in the world cost a lot of money and a lot of time – luckily Oceanic had given Adonia and the rest of the "Oceanic Seven" group free trips wherever and whenever they wanted.

Adonia turned her laptop on and bought the first ticket to London, England she could find. She packed her things.

Adonia hesitated at the door. It's not like Dare was likely to be there, but what if she was? What would she do if she saw her? She knocked. Thirty perilous seconds later, a man answered. He was tall with dark brown hair and a chiseled face.

"Can I help you?" he asked.

"Um, yes. Hi. My name is Adonia Sterling. Is Penelope Widmore here?"

"You're one of the Oceanic Seven, aren't you?" the man asked, eyes growing wider. "Um. Sorry. Pen's out with her father at lunch."

"This is really important. Could you tell me the address?"

The man seemed to study Adonia before finally saying, "Yeah. It's on Welling Street. It's called Piccolino."

"Thank you."

The man nodded and shut the door as Adonia hailed a cab.

"Don't be stupid," Dare said as she turned the stove on. "You can't really be taking that dream seriously."

"It _wasn't_ a _dream_," Desmond said again. "Daniel Faraday came to me at the hatch. I remember it happening. It was years ago – after Kelvin died, but still quite a while – and he told me I needed to find his mother!"

"And then there was a bright light and _bam_! he was gone," Dare finished. She grabbed a frying pan from the cupboard and cracked two eggs on it. "Certainly doesn't _sound_ like a dream."

"I know you don't believe me, but I'm telling you it's true. It happened. I don't know why I forgot, but I did. And now that I remember, I have to go and find her."

"And where are you planning to go to find her?"

"Oxford," Desmond replied immediately. He climbed the stairs to the upper deck of the sailboat and set sail.


	4. A Plan

Desmond sat on the boat with a little boy, about two years old. Desmond pointed out to the horizon: "Look, right over there, beyond where you can see. There is an island and it's a very special island. I left it a long time ago. I never thought I'd see it again. It's called Great Britain. And the most beautiful part of the island is Scotland. That's where your daddy is from. There's mountains and glens and monsters and deep lochs and it's where your mommy and daddy first met."

Dare came up and said, "It's also where we broke apart." She walked over to them.

"Yeah, well I thought I'd leave that bit out."

"You also left out the bit about daddy's best friend's father, the man who sent a boat to the island to kill all daddy's friends."

"We'll be in and out. He'll never know we're here, Dare."

"Don't underestimate him, Desmond. If he finds out we're here, I don't know what he'll do."

"This has nothing to do with Charles Widmore, Dare. We are here because of Daniel Faraday. When he told me that everyone on that island is in danger and I am the only one that can help them... I have to do this, Dare."


	5. Some Help

Adonia waited impatiently behind the corner of the restaurant. She imagined then that she might make a good PI, but knew she would never trade her musical career for anything else. She was waiting for Penny to leave so that she might talk to her alone – Adonia didn't know who Charles Widmore was or what he wanted, but she did know that a lot of people were terrified of him and his power, so she steered clear.

Finally, Penny and Mr. Widmore left the restaurant together. They spoke a few inaudible words by the front door before leaving separate ways – Mr. Widmore hopped into his own private black car, and Penny walked toward Adonia's hiding spot. Just as she passed her, Adonia fell into step beside Penny.

Penny stopped and took a step away from Adonia, her hand grasping her phone tightly.

"Whoa, whoa! It's okay! It's me. It's Adonia. One of the Oceanic Seven? You rescued me, remember?" Adonia removed her sunglasses and smiled.

"Oh. Yes. Hello. Um, can I help you?" Penny looked concerned.

"I was hoping you could, actually. Do you remember Genavieve Belacqua?"

"Yes, of course. She's with Desmond now."

"Do you know where they are?"

Penny paused and looked sad. "I'm so sorry. I haven't seen them since three years ago."

Adonia's heart felt like it had dropped into her stomach. "Thank you," Adonia said, the regret obvious in her voice. She turned to walk away, but Penny said, "But I may know someone who would know."

Adonia looked up hopefully and asked, "Who? Please, it's really important."

"Please, don't tell anyone else. I accidentally overheard my father talking to one of his employees about the island. And he mentioned a woman – Eloise Faraday."

"Faraday?" Adonia repeated. "Daniel Faraday…"

"I'm sorry?"

"Oh. Nothing. It's just… Daniel Faraday was the name of one of the people on your father's salvage team."

"It might be nothing," Penny said, "but it may help. Maybe not to find your friend, but maybe just to help you find some answers."


	6. Oxford

Adonia was eager to try and find Daniel's room at Oxford. Even if he was still stuck on the island, if she found any trace of him she could at least assure herself the island wasn't some elaborate hoax. That she hadn't dreamed the whole thing up. Once she reached the university, she went searching for clues.

As she passed a library and research room, she looked inside, not really knowing why. But what she saw made her freeze and her breath caught in her throat. It was Desmond, she was sure of it. Clean shaven and well dressed (at least, compared to his usual deserted island garb), he was standing at the front desk and talking heatedly to the secretary. Adonia saw the older woman type something into a computer and shake her head. Desmond looked extremely frustrated before stalking out of the room.

Adonia barely had enough time to hide herself between the open door and the wall as Desmond came out. She saw him look at a sign farther ahead that she couldn't read and he disappeared into a hallway. She followed. The sign, she noticed, read "Physics Dept." Perhaps he was there for the same reason she was.

She followed close behind him, trying not to make too much noise. Desmond stopped at a door, tried the handle, and then forced it open with a loud bang. She gasped audibly, but he didn't hear. He went inside. Adonia crept up silently and read that the room was being fumigated. She walked straight into the room without hesitation.

"Hello, Desmond," she said. There was so much emotion and so many questions trying to burst out at once, it was difficult to keep everything bottled, but she forced herself to seem unperturbed at seeing him anyway.

He looked up, openly surprised. "Adonia," he said. "What are you doing here?"

"I think the same thing you are, actually," she replied. She walked over to where Desmond was standing. She took the corner of a sheet and pulled it back to reveal beneath it a giant maze.

Desmond sighed.

"Is this familiar?" Adonia asked.

"Very," Desmond answered. "It was Daniel's." He picked up a photograph of Daniel and pretty blonde woman.

"Who's she?" Adonia asked, taking the framed photo from Desmond.

"Don't know," Desmond answered. He wandered farther into the room.

Adonia wiped the photo with the edge of her sleeve and studied the woman's face. She could only guess that this was the lab partner Dan had mentioned when they spoke on the island.

At that moment, a custodian walked in. "Hey, I wouldn't touch that," he said. "I wondered when someone would figure out we weren't just fumigating here. You're a professor?"

"No. Not exactly," Desmond replied. Adonia placed the photograph down and tried to look as innocent as possible.

"Well, at least you're honest," the custodian replied. He walked over and covered the maze with the sheet.

"So why can't we touch it?" Adonia asked.

"Because I'm the one who had to take the rats that he made run through this bloody thing down to the incinerator so that no one would figure out what he was up to."

"You mean Daniel Faraday?"

"Yeah, you two aren't the first ones to poke around here asking about him and his work. Rumor had it he was trying to send rats' brains back in time. Ridiculous, eh?"

"Aye," Desmond said, though he seemed unconvinced.

"Look, I'll forget you broke my lock if you tell your mates that all you found was rubbish left behind by a madman."

"Fair enough." Desmond started to walk out with Adonia close behind, then he turned. "Faraday…. the University said there's no record of him."

"Well can you blame them? I mean, after what he'd done to that poor girl."

"What girl?" Adonia asked.

The custodian gave her a look. "Theresa Spencer," he said.

They got an address out of him and took their leave.

On the way to the specified address, Adonia broke the silence. "I came here looking for Dare," she said.

"And how'd that go?" he asked.

"I have spent the last three years waiting for a phone call that my best friend promised she'd make, not knowing whether she was safe, whether she was even alive. So don't you dare get smart with me, Desmond Hume."

He looked thoroughly scared for a moment. Finally, he cleared his throat and said, "She's fine. She's great, actually."

"I want to see her."

"I don't think that's –" he started, but Adonia cut him off, saying, "I wasn't asking permission. After we're done talking to Theresa, after we're done getting our answers, you're going to bring me to your house."

"House," Desmond repeated with a small smile. He seemed to think for a moment before saying, "All right. But Dare's going to kill me."

"Not if I kill her first," Adonia muttered under her breath.

They reached the townhouse in central London and knocked. A woman opened the door and asked, "And who might you be?"

"My name is Desmond Hume and this is Adonia Sterling. We're looking for Theresa Spencer."

"I'm Abigail Spencer," the woman replied. "Theresa is my sister."

"All right. Can we have a word with her?"

"You want to speak to Theresa?"

"Yeah, we got her name from a gentleman we met at Oxford University. Um, Daniel Faraday-"

"Daniel Faraday? Well why didn't you say so. Please, you must come in."

She took them to a bedroom where a nurse was feeding a woman hooked up to machines. Desmond looked surprised. Adonia clenched her jaw. It was hard scene to look at.

"He didn't tell you, did he?" Abigail asked, studying her guests' faces.

"No. No, he didn't. Can she hear us?" Desmond replied.

"No. Theresa's away right now."

"Away?" Adonia inquired.

"Well sometimes she wakes up and thinks she's three, wants to know where her dolly is. Yesterday she was talking to our dad. He died five years ago."

"I'm sorry. This is a mistake. We shouldn't have come," Desmond said.

"Of course, why would you want to stay? Daniel certainly didn't."

"He left her like this?" Desmond asked, shocked.

Adonia swallowed hard.

"Went running off to the States never to be heard from again. He abandoned her. What kind of a man does that? I seriously don't know what we would have done if it hadn't been for Mr. Widmore."

"I'm sorry, who?" Desmond asked. Adonia held her breath.

"Daniel's benefactor. He funded his research and then he took responsibility for the result of it. He's been taking care of Theresa ever since this happened to her. Everything here is due to Mr. Widmore. God bless him."

Desmond and Adonia exchanged a dark look.


	7. Colleagues

"You'd better wait here," Desmond told Adonia as they entered a deserted waiting room. It was plush and full of expensive-looking furniture. Adonia took a seat in a comfy armchair. She saw that there was a private secretary just down the hall. Desmond stalked off towards the door at the end of the hall.

Desmond stormed into Charles Widmore's office with the secretary close behind, asking him to stop.

She apologized to Mr. Widmore and he said, "It's all right. Mr. Hume was a colleague of mine." He stopped the security that had just entered the room and asked them to leave.

"I know you have questions for me," Desmond said. "I'm not going to answer them. I've come here to ask you something. And once you've told me everything I need to know, you'll never see me again. Understand?"

"All right."

"I need to know where I can find Daniel Faraday's mother."

"What makes you think I would even know the answer to that?"

"Because even before you put Faraday on your little boat and sent him off to the island, you spent ten years funding his research. So I figure you must know something regarding his next of kin."

Charles Widmore seemed to think about the question before answering, "She's in Los Angeles. This is an address for her. I suspect she won't be pleased to see you, she's a very private person." He wrote down the address and gave it to Desmond.

Desmond went to the door to leave as Charles Widmore said, "You're putting yourself in the middle of something that goes back many years. It has nothing to do with you. Wherever you were hiding, go back there."

"Thanks for the advice," he replied.


	8. Reunited

"I'm back!" Dare heard Desmond call from the upperdeck. She put the book down that she was reading to a now-sleeping Charlie and went into the next room. "And I brought a guest," Desmond said. He came down the stairs and they kissed. More footsteps were approaching.

"A guest?" Dare asked nervously. Adonia stopped at the bottom of the stairs and the two girls stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity before Dare practically jumped at Adonia, hugging her tightly. "Oh my God, it's you! It's really you!" Dare exclaimed.

Adonia laughed nervously, but hugged Dare back. "Hi Dare," she said.

"I'm so sorry, Addie. I'm so, so sorry." They let go of each other and Dare wiped away a stray tear. "I wanted to contact you. Believe me, I did. But it wasn't safe. It never was. I'm so sorry."

"You're sorry?" Adonia asked quietly.

Desmond, who had been watching from the sidelines, decided he had better leave. He went into the other room where Charlie was still asleep.

"Addie, I really didn't mean-"

"I don't care what you meant," Adonia cut in, trying without much luck to hide the anger in her voice. "You _promised_ you weren't going to leave me. And you lied. You disappeared. I thought you were _dead_, for Christ's sake!"

"I know. I know I'm a terrible person and I deserve every ounce of your anger, but you have to understand that I didn't contact you because being around me is extremely dangerous."

"Dangerous? So I guess Desmond is the exception, then?"

"No. No, he's in danger, too. But… but, he agreed to hide with me. It's different with him-"

"It's different how? So, now that you have dear old Des, why would you want or even _need_ a stupid best friend around? Is that it?"

"That's not it at all, Addie, and you know it!" Dare snapped back. "I'm with Desmond and not you because Desmond doesn't have anyone tying him down. You had Jack, Addie! I wasn't choosing Desmond over you, I was giving you Jack!"

"Well, good choice. Especially since I had to kick Jack out of my own house," Adonia replied. She swallowed hard and said, "We were engaged."

Dare sighed. "I'm so sorry, Addie. I love you. And I missed you. Please believe me. Please."

Adonia pursed her lips and seemed to study Dare for a moment before nodding. "I believe you. It was stupid of you, but I believe you."

"Oh, thank you, Addie! I love you!" The girls hugged again, this time Adonia hugged her back and meant it. Once they let go, Dare took Adonia's hand and led her into the kitchen. "So, tell me everything – you were engaged to Jack?"

"Yeah," Adonia replied. "After all the publicity from being one of the 'Oceanic Seven', Jack and I really stuck together. We helped keep Kate out of jail. God, you should see Aaron – he's beautiful. Looks _just_ like Claire. Jack moved in within the first two months. He was such a wonderful guy – always thoughtful, you know? He'd buy me flowers every week, but always on a different day so I never expected them. He proposed two months ago." Adonia smiled involuntarily. "But then Locke came."

"Locke?" Dare asked in disbelief. "How the hell did he get off the island?"

"I don't know," Adonia said, "but he found me and he found Jack and I'm pretty sure he found the other Oceanic Seven, too. After he talked to Jack, though, he must have said something to really get to him. Jack kept talking about how we needed to go back to the island – how it was our destiny. God, if I didn't know any better, I'd say Locke took over his mind or something! I told him he was crazy and stupid for wanting to go back. We had a _life_, after all. We were just settling down! But he really lost it. He… he started taking prescription sleeping pills all the time. He was constantly drinking. I loved Jack, but I couldn't be around that." Adonia hid her face in her hands. "God, I hated it. I hated every second of it. Locke ruined everything, that son of a bitch."

"I'm so sorry," Dare said. She placed her hand on top of Adonia's and smiled. "At least you found me. I was hoping you would some day. There were a couple times we sailed close to LA and I wanted to go to find you, but Desmond said it would be too dangerous. Charles Widmore could have people following you because he knows I would look for you."

"Charles Widmore?" Adonia asked. "What's he got to do with you or me?"

Dare hesitated. It was now or never to tell Adonia the truth. "I worked for Charles Widmore. I had been working for him for three years when we crashed on the island."

Adonia looked shocked. "What?" she asked.

Dare explained everything and by the end of her story, Adonia was holding her hand over her mouth, looking horrified.

"You lied to me all that time?" Adonia asked, looking sincerely insulted.

"Only because I had to," Dare explained calmly. "And I lied to everyone. Even Brendon," she admitted guiltily.

Adonia nodded understandingly. "Fine. Okay, I get it. You were a PI. It was your job to lie. But now I need to know the truth. About everything. So spill. What have you been up to the past three years? Sailing, I assume?"

"Yeah. We've pretty much sailed around the world," Dare replied. "Beautiful beaches and we've been through some pretty rough storms, too."

"I would think you'd be sick of the ocean and beach by now." 

"So it would seem, but it's beautiful, even if you were stranded on a deserted island for a hundred days."

"So that's it? You traveled?"

Dare looked guilty.

"Oh God. What is it?" Adonia asked, concerned.

With impeccable timing, Desmond walked in carrying a sleepy, but awake two-year-old boy.

"Um. This is Charlie," Dare said.

Adonia's jaw dropped. "Holy… I can't…" She froze and couldn't speak for a moment. Finally she asked, "You're a _mother_?"

Dare nodded. "Yup. He just turned two last month."

"Charlie," Adonia repeated fondly. "That was extremely sweet."

"Desmond's idea, not mine," Dare said.

"I think he deserved it," Desmond said.

Adonia nodded. "That he did. So… was there a wedding?"

"Nothing big," Dare said, but she held up her left hand where a silver band embraced her ring finger. "In fact, no one was really invited, so don't be insulted."

"I'm too shocked to be insulted," Adonia said. "Can I hold him?" She held out her arms for Charlie and Desmond handed him over. "Hello Charlie," Adonia said with a smile. "I'm Auntie Addie." Charlie grinned widely and said, "Hello," in a small voice.

"So, did you find Daniel's mother?" Dare asked.

"She's dead," Desmond answered quickly.

Dare studied his face before asking, "Why are you lying? Where is she?"

Desmond sighed. "She's in Los Angeles. Dare, you've got nothing to worry about. I promised you this would be done in a day and now it's done. It's not our problem anymore."

"And what happens if you wake up tomorrow and you remember something else?"

"I'll forget it."

"And the next day?"

"I'll forget it. It doesn't matter, Dare."

She shook her head. "You'll never forget it, Des. So I guess we're going with you."


	9. The Lamppost

"I still can't believe you had a kid," Adonia said. Dare, Desmond, and Adonia were walking down the street towards what they hoped would be the right address for finding Daniel Faraday's mother.

Dare smiled. "You're sure Peter didn't mind watching Charlie?" Dare asked Desmond.

"No, he was fine," Desmond replied. "Plus, he's my little brother – he has to do what I tell him."

"Lovely," Dare noted.

They started to walk around a corner, but Desmond held out his hand, stopping Dare and Adonia from walking any further. They looked ahead and saw a group of people talking heatedly with one another.

"Jack," Adonia said, recognizing Jack's tall figure, even in the dark.

"I can't tell who else is there," Dare said softly. Then two other people stepped into the light of a streetlight. Ben was being held at gunpoint by Sun.

"Benjamin Linus?" Adonia asked no one is particular. "What's he doing here?"

Dare was wondering the same thing, though she didn't voice it.

"That's the address," Desmond said, pointing beyond the group in front of them. It was a huge cathedral.

"That's where Faraday's mother lives?" Dare asked. "A church?"

"Well, it's gotta mean something that all of them are here, right?" Adonia asked.

Dare grabbed Desmond's hand and dragged him back behind the building they were peeking behind from. "I need you to hold on to this," she said. She took off her wedding ring and gave it to him. He looked surprised.

"What? Why?"

"Is now really the time to start a fight?" Adonia asked, watching them nervously.

"It's not like that," Dare said. "Benjamin Linus is dangerous. As far as he knows, Desmond is still with Penny. It's better if we keep him thinking that."

Desmond looked like he wanted to protest, but slipped the ring into his pocket instead.

"Thank you," Dare said. She looked back around the corner and saw that Sun was no longer threatening Ben. How was it that he always got his way?

"Come on," Adonia said. "We'll never know why they're here if we don't show ourselves." She walked ahead, Desmond and Dare following close behind.

"What are you doing here?" Desmond asked, looking at Ben.

"I assume the same thing you are," Ben replied. He looked at Dare for a moment, but his expression didn't change.

"You're looking for Faraday's mother too?" Desmond asked.

Ben turned around and walked into the church. The rest followed. Adonia and Jack made eye contact, but didn't say anything to one another.

Inside the large church, an elderly woman was lighting candles.

"Hello, Eloise," Ben said.

"Hello, Benjamin," she replied.

Dare noticed Desmond make a strange expression when seeing her. She longed to ask him if he knew her, but didn't want to jeopardize their charade.

"I thought I said all of them," Eloise noted.

"This was all I could do on short notice," Ben said.

She sighed. "Well I suppose it will have to do for now. All right, let's get started."

She walked to the front of the church, opened a door, and turned on a light. "Shall we?"

They all followed her down a circular staircase. At the bottom, they met a hallway. At the end, Eloise turned a wheel on a heavy door and opened it, walked through, and turned on the light. They all followed behind to see computers calculating and a large pendulum swinging back and forth, making markings on a chalkboard on the floor.

"What is this place?" Jack asked.

"The Dharma Initiative called it The Lamppost. This is how they found the island," Eloise replied with a small smile.

Dare then noticed that the large chalkboard that the pendulum was marking on was a map of the world.

"Did you know about this place?" Jack asked Ben.

"No, I didn't," Ben said.

"Is he telling the truth?" Jack asked Eloise.

"Probably not," she replied. She pulled a binder out of a drawer and said, "Aha, here we go. I apologize if this is confusing, but let's pay attention, yes?"

Dare and Adonia exchanged a look before turning their attention to the old woman.

"The room we're standing in was constructed years ago over a unique pocket of electromagnetic energy. That energy connects to similar pockets all over the world. The people who built this room, however, were only interested in one."

"The island," Sun said.

"Yes, the island," Eloise said. "They'd gathered proof that it existed. They knew it was out there somewhere, but they just couldn't find it. Then, a very clever fellow built this pendulum on the theoretical notion that they should stop looking for where the island was supposed to be and start looking for where the island was going to be."

"What do you mean 'Where it was going to be'?" Adonia asked.

"Well this fellow presumed, and correctly as it turns out, that the island was always moving. Why do you think you were never rescued? Now, while the movements of the island seem random, this man and his team created a series of equations which tell us, with a high degree of probability, where it is going to be in a certain point in time. Windows, as it were, that while open, provide a route back. Unfortunately, these windows don't stay open for very long. Yours closes in 46 hours." She handed Jack the folder.

"Um, I'm sorry, excuse me," Desmond said. Dare held her breath and hoped he wasn't about to say something stupid. "Am I really hearing this? That's what this is about? You're all going back to the island? Willingly?" He looked around at everyone gathered.

"Yes," Sun said. "Why are you here, Desmond?"

"I came here to deliver a message." He turned to Eloise and said, "Daniel, your son, sent me here. He wanted me to tell you that he and all the other people on the island need your help. He said that only you could help them. He didn't say Jack, he didn't say Ben. He said you."

"But I am helping, dear," Eloise replied haughtily.

"Consider the message delivered." He started to walk out. Dare hesitated.

Eloise said, "I'm sorry to have to tell you this, Desmond, but the island isn't done with you yet."

Desmond turned on his heel and stormed back at Eloise. "This woman cost me four years of my life! Four years that I'll never get back because you told me that I was supposed to go to the island! That it was my bloody purpose!"

She nodded knowingly.

Desmond went to Jack. "You listen to me, brother, and you listen carefully. These people, they're just using us. They're playing some kind of game and we are just pieces. Whatever she tells you to do, ignore it." He walked back over to Eloise. "You say the island is not done with me? Well, I'm done with the island." As he walked out, he made eye contact with Dare. He left and slammed the door behind him.

"Can I talk to you?" Dare asked, turning to Adonia. Adonia nodded and they left quickly out the same door Desmond had just exited through. They got into the hall and Dare saw Desmond at the end of the hall, waiting. She walked up to him and said, "Was all that really necessary?"

"Yes, it was," he said stubbornly. "She ruined my life, Dare! That woman was the same woman who convinced me to destroy my own life so that I could get stranded on a bloody island!"

"If you hadn't been stranded on that _bloody island_, you would never have met me again," Dare pointed out.

He sighed. "I know. I'm sorry. I know. But, you've got to understand where I'm coming from."

"Sure. I do," Dare said. "But you have to understand where I'm coming from, too." She paused and looked guilty.

"You can't honestly be telling me that you're going back," Desmond said, looking desperate.

"Do you remember when you told me that you _had_ to find Faraday's mother because you had to save all the people still on the island? Well, now I have to go to the island to save those people, too."

"Dare, don't go," Adonia said, chiming in. "You've got a life here…"

Dare sighed. "I have to go. If there's anything I can do for those we left on the island, I'm going to do it." She turned back to Desmond. "And if you're not going to come, then… I guess I'm on my own."

"I can't go back," Desmond said. "I was on that island for too long. I'm never going back, Dare. And you shouldn't either. What about Charlie? What about your _son_?"

"You'll take care of him, won't you?" Dare asked, tearing up.

Desmond reached out and held her. "Don't go, Dare. Please don't go."

She sniffled. "I have to go," she choked out. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I love you, Des."

"I love you, too," he said. They kissed.

"I hear them coming," Adonia warned them.

Dare nodded and Desmond climbed the stairs. Dare hastily wiped tears away from her eyes.

Adonia grabbed her hand as Jack, Kate, Sun, Ben, and Eloise came through the door.


	10. The Church

Dare stared down at her plane ticket.

"At least we have seats next to each other," Adonia said. She held up her ticket next to Dare's and pointed to the little number in the left corner. "And first class, too. That's how all the cool kids are crashing their planes these days, I hear."

Dare forced a laugh. They were sitting in a pew in the back of the church. "You don't have to stay for me, Adonia. You should go home and pack. We leave in 45 hours and counting."

"Where are you going to go?" Adonia asked.

"I'll see if _Our Mutual Friend_ is still there. Then…"

"Then, you can come to my place." Adonia took out a piece of scrap paper from her purse and scribbled down an address. "Promise me you'll call either way, though, okay? And I mean it. Call this time."

Dare nodded. "All right. I'll call."

"I'd better go," Adonia said. "Are you sticking around? We could grab a cab together…"

"I'm just going to stay here for a couple minutes, actually." Dare smiled up at Adonia. "I'll call you," she promised.

Adonia left and Dare waited until she heard the double doors of the church close before getting up and walking to a pew closer to the front. It was already occupied.

"Hello Genavieve," Ben said, not turning to look at her.

"Hi… Ben."

"You know I thought you were dead," he said.

"So did a lot of people."

"So, where were you?" he asked.

"If I told you that, it wouldn't be much of a hiding place, would it?" Dare asked with a smile.

"The apple doesn't fall far from the tree."

"You have no right-!" Dare began, but she stopped when she heard a door to her right open. Jack stepped out with Eloise behind him. Dare had thought they'd left. She stood up. "I'll see you on the plane," she said curtly. She turned on her heel and stormed out of the church.

Back at the dock, Dare scanned the sailboats and yachts, searching for the white sails of _Our Mutual Friend_. Her heart almost dropped when she didn't spot it, but then she saw it, several yards farther than she remembered. She climbed on board and took the stairs down to the lower deck. All the lights were turned off. She realized that Desmond could still be out picking up Charlie from Peter's house. But, she saw a dim light coming from Charlie's room.

She peeked in and saw Desmond reading quietly to an already asleep Charlie. She smiled in spite of herself.


	11. Yearbook

Adonia dropped her purse on the kitchen table and looked around at her small, but quaint, apartment. She'd miss running water and air conditioning. She pulled her long, dark brown, wavy hair into a ponytail and went into her room. She set to work packing all the things she would need. There wasn't even a guarantee that she'd be able to find her suitcase once they crashed, but it was comforting to think you might actually be able to wear your own clothes.

She was rifling through her bookshelf, looking for a novel or something she could read on the plane, when she happened upon something she hadn't realized she still had: her high school yearbook. She opened up the yellowing pages and found her senior portrait. She remembered begging her mother to not make her take it, but her mother had insisted.

Adonia flipped back a couple pages and scanned the rows of students until her eyes fell upon one face. Dark hair, pale skin and an adorably cute smile. The name beneath the picture read: Daniel Faraday.


	12. 45 Hours

"I thought you said you were going back," Desmond said quietly, shutting Charlie's door behind him.

"I am," Dare replied. "I don't leave until two days from now. That's when the plane goes over the right coordinates or something."

Desmond sighed. "I can't believe you're going to purposefully get on a plane to have it crash and bring you to a deserted island. You could get hurt!"

"I could get hurt staying here, Des. At least on the island, Charles Widmore can't get to me."

He looked at her with sad eyes. "Fine. I won't make you stay. I'm just glad to have you here for a little bit longer." He hugged her.

"Like you could _make_ me stay," Dare scoffed. "I could take you out, easily."

"Is that a challenge?" he asked.


	13. Secrets

Adonia closed the yearbook and tucked it back into the shelf just as her cell phone rang loudly from the kitchen. She picked it up and answered, "Dare?"

"Yeah, it's me. I'm okay. Desmond didn't leave."

Adonia sighed. "Good. I'm glad. So you'll be staying there until the flight?"

"Yeah," Dare replied. "Are you going to be okay on your own?"

"Me? Yeah, I'll be fine. Why?"

"It's just… Jack. I mean, he's coming, too. If it's going to be awkward… I'm always here to talk to."

"Don't worry about me," Adonia said. "Jack and I will figure it out. Besides… I think he's with Kate right now."

"Kate?"

"Yeah. Listen, I should go. I really… I'm tired," she finished lamely.

"I'm here," Dare said, "if you need to talk. Just call, okay? I'm not going anywhere."


	14. Loose Ends

"I'm just going out to pick up some things from the grocery, I'll be back!" Desmond announced from the other room. It was the next morning.

"All right," Dare yelled back. She and Charlie were sitting at the kitchen island eating breakfast. Dare was filling in a Sudoku puzzle in the morning paper when her phone rang. "Hello?" she answered.

"Hey, it's me," Adonia said from the other end.

"Hello there."

"Are you busy?" Adonia asked.

"Nah. Des just stepped out. Charlie and I are eating breakfast. What's up?"

"Nothing. I was just bored. Wanted to talk, is all."

Dare smiled and tucked the phone between her ear and her shoulder. "You do realize that I was a professional secret discoverer, right? I know when a person's lying."

Adonia laughed humorlessly. "Yeah. Plus, I'm bad at it."

"So what do you really want?"

"I want to know why you're really going back to island," Adonia replied.

"What do you mean? I told you. If I can play a part in saving Sawyer, Juliet, Miles – everyone we left behind's lives, then I will."

"Yeah, and I believed that for a while," Adonia said. "But you know as well as I do that we could get that job done just as fast without you there."

"You don't want me to go?" Dare asked.

"No, I don't," Adonia replied bluntly. She sighed audibly. "You have a _life_, Dare. You have a family. You have something really genuine that you're leaving behind. You promised me you wouldn't lie – that you'd tell me the whole truth. So, why are you going back?"

Dare cleared her throat. She looked at Charlie who had begun busying himself with a coloring book. She left the room and took the stairs to the upper deck. It was sunny out and a beautiful day.

"LA is wonderful," Dare said into the phone.

"Are you avoiding the question?" Adonia asked.

"No. LA is wonderful and I would really enjoy living here but I can't, Addie. I can't because if I did, I might be killed. Or worse – my husband or my son could get hurt. Do you know what that's like? Having to run from someone you used to work for? Someone you used to trust? It's horrible. I'm not entirely sure what kind of a man Mr. Widmore is, but I do know he is not below hiring a trigger happy, ex-military killing machine to find a single person on an island, not caring who gets hurt on the way. And Keamy was just the beginning. There's hundreds of people like Keamy who could be hired in an instant. I won't rest, Addie, until I know that Charles Widmore is no longer looking for me. And I won't know that until I go to the island."

"How will you know that by going to the island?" Adonia asked.

"Someone told me. Someone came to me the other day. He said his name was Jacob. I think he was _the_ Jacob, Addie. And he told me that if I went to the island, Charles Widmore would finally leave me and my family alone for good. So tell me, Adonia Sterling, why are _you_ going to the island?"

"Sawyer," Adonia answered immediately.

Dare laughed. "You don't actually expect me to believe that?"

"No, I guess not," Adonia replied. "But, will you leave it be if I just tell you that I can't tell you? It's a little bit too much to talk about right now. I don't think I'm quite ready…"

"Fine," Dare said. "But you will tell me eventually, right?"

"Sure," Adonia agreed. "Eventually."

"I'd better go," Dare said. "We're going to sail around a bit this afternoon and I promised Des we'd be ready to sail by the time he got back."

"All right. I'll talk to you later."

"Bye."

Dare hung up the phone and put it in her back pocket. Ten minutes later, Desmond returned. Dare went below to check on Charlie, who was still coloring away.

"Daddy home?" Charlie asked, looking up at Dare.

"Yes, love. I'm going to help him take the groceries in and then we're going to go sailing, all right?"

Charlie nodded and continued coloring. Suddenly, a loud bang echoed from outside. Dare knew the sound of a gunshot by now, and it chilled her to the bone. She raced up the steps. "Desmond? Desmond? Des?"

She looked across and saw Desmond lying on the ground. "Oh my God," she whispered, clasping her hand over her mouth. Then, she saw Benjamin Linus. He was on the dock, holding a gun at her, though he looked rather confused to see her.

"You?" he asked.

"What did you do?" Dare yelled.

"It wasn't supposed to be you!" Ben shouted. He still held the gun straight at Dare, so she didn't risk going to Desmond.

"Mommy?" Dare looked over to see Charlie come onto the deck.

"Go back inside, Charlie. Go on, love," she said in the calmest voice she could muster. "Charlie, go inside." The little boy clambered back down the stairs.

"You have a son," Ben said, finally lowering the gun. Just as he finished his sentence, Desmond tackled him from behind and started beating him. Dare rushed onto the dock, but not before Desmond threw him into the water.

Desmond's arm was bleeding badly where he was shot and he looked pale. Dare threw her arm around the unconscious Ben's chest and dragged him back onto the pier.

"What are you doing?" Desmond asked as if she were crazy. "Did you see what he just did?"

"Yes."

"Then why are you saving him?"

Ben coughed and breathed heavily. Dare took her phone out and typed in 911. "Because he's my father." She pressed send.


	15. It Was Ben

"Shit," Adonia muttered. "Are you okay?" She rushed towards Dare and they hugged. The small waiting room outside the OR was empty except for Dare and a sleeping Charlie.

"Yeah, I'm okay," Dare said. "Thank you for coming."

"Is he okay?"

"I don't know. I haven't heard anything."

"What the hell happened?"

"It was Ben."

"Ben?"

Dare looked up past Adonia and saw Eloise standing there, watching the scene from a distance. "What's she doing here?" Dare asked.


	16. A Visitor

-Earlier that morning-

Adonia woke up at nine in the morning still tired. She couldn't wrap her head around the fact that she was going back to the island in thirty-some hours, even with all her bags packed around her.

She showered, dressed, and ate breakfast. She turned on the news, but wasn't really watching. She turned the TV off and took out her cell phone. She called Dare. There was something Dare wasn't telling her. There had to be some reason Dare was going back to the island – Adonia had her reason, so what was hers?

After they hung up, there was a knock at Adonia's door.

It was Eloise.

"Wha - ? What are you doing here?" Adonia asked.

"May I come in?" Eloise asked. Adonia stepped back and let the woman in. "I know why you're going back to the island."

"Do you?" Adonia asked, shutting the door. She gestured to the chairs at her kitchen island and they both sat.

"And I've come to tell you that it won't work."

Adonia sighed. "I can't not _try_."

"Didn't you try the last time you saw my son?" Eloise asked.

"Well, no, not exactly. I never… I never got to ask him."

"It's a terrible thing, I know. But he's forgotten everyone from his past, Adonia Sterling, and it doesn't matter what you do or what you tell him – he is not going to remember you."

Adonia shook her head. "I don't care if he remembers me or not – I care for him. And I am going to get him off that island if it's the last thing I do."

Eloise looked like she was about to say something, but Adonia's phone rang. "I'm sorry," Adonia said to Eloise. "I've got to take this." She answered the phone, "Dare, what's up?"

"Desmond's been shot. I'm leaving for the hospital now. Can you meet me there?"

"Oh my God, is he okay?"

"I'll see you there," Dare said abruptly. She hung up. Adonia hung up, too, and looked at Eloise.

"Did you know this was going to happen?"

"What?" Eloise asked.

Adonia glared at the old woman. "I'm going to hospital. Come with me or go somewhere else," she said.


	17. Always

"She was at my apartment when you called," Adonia explained.

"I'm so sorry, Mrs. Hume, but I'm afraid this is my son's fault," Eloise said, coming forward.

"How is this Daniel's fault?" Dare asked.

"He was the one who told Desmond to find me, wasn't he?"

Dare didn't respond. A nurse walked up and said, "Your husband is in the recovery room." Dare sighed, relieved.

"I'll watch Charlie," Adonia said.

"Thank you."

Dare followed the nurse down a couple hallways until she let Dare off at a door. Dare walked in and saw Desmond sitting up. His arm was in a sling, but he looked fine.

"Hey," she said. She sat on the edge of the bed.

"Hey, yourself," he replied.

"I'm so sorry," Dare said. She started to cry.

"Hey, hey. Don't cry. This wasn't your fault."

"I should have told you," Dare choked out. "I should have told you about Ben."

"That wouldn't have made a difference," Desmond said.

"I know," Dare said. "But I should have told you. I was worried…"

"Worried about what?"

"Worried that you might think that I was like him. That you might hate me if you knew."

"Like… like Ben? Dare, how could I ever think that?" He put his hand on her cheek. "I will _always_ love you."


	18. A Promise

Eloise left the hospital, leaving Adonia alone with Charlie. Charlie stirred and sat up, rubbing his eyes.

"Hello, Charlie," Adonia said.

"Where's Mommy?"

"Mommy and Daddy are talking right now. They'll be back soon, okay?"

Charlie nodded. Adonia sat next to him and he laid his head on her lap. A nurse and a doctor walked past the waiting room, talking about a patient. Adonia ignored them until she heard a name: Linus.

Adonia moved Charlie and got up. She went down the hall and spotted a nurse. "Could you watch my… nephew for a moment? I just have to use the bathroom." The nurse agreed and went into the waiting room. Adonia spotted the nurse and doctor who had said Ben's name down the hallway. She saw them turn into a room. She waited outside the door for a minute before the doctor and nurse both left.

"He says he has to catch a flight tomorrow," the nurse said.

"Yeah, he'll be okay by then. Must've been a pretty nasty fight," the doctor replied.

"The daughter said he didn't approve of the marriage." The nurse and doctor turned the corner and disappeared.

Adonia checked the room. There was a dim light coming from the right side of the room where Benjamin Linus sat, reading a book, his round glasses perched on his crooked nose.

Ben looked up when Adonia entered. "Adonia," he said. "And to what do I owe this pleasure?"

"What kind of bull shit story did you feed them, anyway?" Adonia asked, feeling the anger build up inside her.

"Who?"

"The doctors. I heard them talking about a daughter and her marriage or something. What did you tell them?"

Ben looked a little disappointed. "I guess Genavieve didn't tell anyone, then."

"Tell anyone _what_?" Adonia snapped.

"Well, would you believe me if I told you anything?"

Adonia thought. "Probably not. You're a liar. And that's all you'll ever be. It's so sad and I pity you, Benjamin Linus." She took a seat in a chair next to his bed.

He laughed humorlessly. "So why are you here?"

"I came to tell you something."

"Oh really? And what's that?"

"That if you _ever_ hurt Dare or Desmond or Charlie or anyone else that she or I care about again, it'll be the last thing you ever do."

Ben's face was unreadable. Adonia stood and went to the doorway. "I'll see you on the plane," she said.


	19. Civilized Conversation

Dare and Adonia boarded the plane. They showed their tickets to the flight attendant, who pointed out their seats for them. Walking down the aisle, they spotted Sayid with a woman. In the next row was Sun and then Kate. Dare and Adonia sat behind Kate's row and made themselves as comfortable as possible.

Hurley got on carrying a guitar case and he placed it in the seat next to him.

"That should be it," said one flight attendant to the other.

"Wait, please," came a voice. Ben scrambled onto the plane. His arm was in a sling and he looked severely bruised. Dare couldn't help but feel a little happy about it. "Thank you for not closing it," Ben said.

Adonia tensed in her seat.

"Wait, what's he doing here?" Hurley asked, standing up and looking at Ben.

"Hurley," Jack said.

"No, no, he can't come!" Hurley shouted.

"Hurley," Jack said calmly, "if you want to get back, this is how it's going to have to be."

"No one told me he was going to be here," Hurley said.

"Who told you to be here, Hugo?" Ben asked with a meaningful look.

The flight attendant walked up and asked, "Is everything okay?"

"Yes," Jack answered. "Yes, everything is fine." He looked at Hurley. "Right?"

The flight attendant looked at Jack and asked, "Are you Jack Shephard, seat 8C?"

"Yes."

"Security found this while screening your cargo." She handed him an envelope. "Now, if you two don't mind taking your seats, we'll be pushing back for take off."

"What's that, Jack?" Ben asked. He was sitting in the middle aisle, in a row behind Dare and Adonia, to their right. Dare was on the aisle seat and listened inconspicuously. Adonia plugged her ears with headphones and turned on her iPod.

Jack, who was sitting directly behind Dare, replied, "Nothing." Dare heard him turn in his seat. "And the other people on this plane – what's going to happen to them?"

"Who cares?" Ben replied.

The plane taxied down the runway and then lifted off. As soon as the seat belt sign went off, Jack got up and went to sit next to Kate. Dare glanced over at Adonia and saw that she was resting with her eyes closed. Dare unclasped her seat belt and took Jack's seat across the aisle from Ben.

"How can you say that?" Dare asked Ben.

He looked over at her and said, "Say what?"

"Who cares," Dare repeated. "Those are people back there," she pointed her thumb at them, "with families and friends."

Ben laughed a little, but said nothing. Dare rolled her eyes.

"So did you convince Sayid and Hurley to come?" Dare asked.

"Convince? You think _I_ had something to do with them being on this plane? I'm flattered, but no."

"So they just _happen_ to be on the same flight that's _probably_ going to crash back on the island?"

Ben shrugged.

The captain came over the loudspeaker and said, "Welcome to Ajira Air. This is your captain, Frank J. Lapidus, and on behalf of the entire flight crew, welcome aboard."

Dare looked around the seat in front of her and saw that Adonia was looking shocked, her earphones no longer in her ears. She looked back and saw Dare. "Frank?" Adonia mouthed. Dare made a face. They saw Jack walk up to the flight attendant. They exchanged a few words and then he took his seat. The flight attendant got on the phone and then Frank came out.

He and Jack shook hands and talk inaudibly.

"Do you think he knows?" Dare asked Adonia.

They looked back up to see Frank spot Hurley, Kate, Sayid, Sun, Adonia, Dare and Ben. He looked terrified for a moment.

"He does now," Adonia replied.

After Frank went back into the cockpit, Adonia looked at Dare and saw who she was sitting next to. Ben was lost in a book, _Ulysses_.

"What are you _doing_?" Adonia whispered urgently, looking from Dare to Ben and back again.

"Just talking," Dare said.

"You do realize he's the one that shot your _husband_, right?"

Dare shrugged and leaned back into her chair. "Is it any good?" She motioned towards Ben's book.

He looked up at her. "Why are you here?" he asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I shot Desmond for one."

"You didn't mean to, did you?" Dare asked.

"There are always casualties in war."

"That's not what I meant. When you saw it was me, you said it wasn't _supposed_ to be me. So who was it _supposed_ to be, Ben?"

"To tell you the truth, I thought Desmond was still with Penelope Widmore."

"You came to kill Penelope?" Dare asked.

"It's not like that," Ben tried to explain.

Dare held her hand up, stopping him. "I don't want to know. But… would you have done it?"

"Done what?" Ben looked tired of answering questions.

"Would you have shot Penny if it weren't me in her place? Even if she had a son, too?"

"I don't know," Ben replied, "because it didn't happen like that, did it? Why are you asking all these questions, anyway?"

"Just trying to figure out what kind of person you are," Dare answered.

"How am I doing?"

Dare smiled. "That's for me to know and you to find out." She stood and took her regular seat next to Adonia, who was fast asleep.

They hit turbulence. Adonia woke up and exchanged a dark look with Dare. The fasten seatbelt light came on and they abided. The flight attendant came through and was telling people to fasten their seatbelts when the plane started jerking from left to right. The flight attendant was being thrown like a ragdoll across the aisles. A flash of light, and Dare blacked out.


	20. Crash

Dare opened her eyes and saw bright sunshine. She squinted and sat up. She was sore all over, but at least she was alive. She looked around and saw that she was in the jungle. So, they really had gotten back to the island. It felt terrible being back.

Dare took a breath and stood, holding onto the trunk of a tree for support. She took in her surroundings and noticed she was alone. There was no noise from the wreckage of the plane, either. She started walking, hoping she would eventually run into someone or something familiar.

Ten minutes later, feeling exhausted and thirsty, Dare finally saw someone up ahead.

"Jack?" she yelled.

He turned and saw Dare. It was Jack.

"Dare," he said. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm all right," she said. "You?"

He nodded. He was out of breath, indicating that Dare probably wasn't the only one who had just trekked through the jungle.

"What the hell happened?" Dare asked, rubbing her forehead where an increasingly painful headache was throbbing.

"I'm not sure. I saw a flash and then next thing I knew, I woke up on the jungle floor."

"Same here," Dare said.

"Come on. The others should be close by," Jack said. He led the way through the thick jungle. Suddenly, they heard someone calling out and they broke into a run, rushing towards the voice. They eventually got to a waterfall where they saw Hurley holding on to his guitar case for dear life in a pool of water beneath them. Jack immediately jumped in. Dare found a safer route down.

By the time Dare got down to the bottom, Jack and Hurley were drying off and a flustered-looking Kate was talking.

"So this is it?" she asked. "It's just us?"

Dare looked into the jungle behind them and saw a flash of red. She walked in and saw not 100 yards in an unconscious Adonia.

"Jack!" Dare yelled.

Jack, Kate, and Hurley rushed into the jungle. Jack bent over Adonia just as she started to open her eyes.

"Wha… What happened?" Adonia asked with a pained expression.

"No idea," Dare answered. "Does anyone actually remember crashing?"

Hurley shook his head.

Adonia sat up, holding her hand to the back of her head. When she brought her hand back, it was covered in blood.

"You must have hit your head on a rock or something," Jack said. "Here, keep pressure on it." He brought out a piece of cloth from his pocket. Adonia took it from him and pressed it on her wound.

"One second I'm being tossed around and the next second I'm in a lagoon," Hurley said.

"Where is Sun and Sayid?" Kate asked. "Where's Ben?"

"All right," Jack said, helping Adonia stand. "Let's spread out, search the jungle. We come across anyone from the plane, we'll –."

Suddenly, a Dharma bus drove up and a man jumped out, pointing a rifle at them.

"Jin?" Hurley asked.

Jin lowered the gun and they saw he was wearing Dharma coveralls.


	21. 1977

"How's your head?" Dare asked Adonia. They had all piled into Jin's Dharma VW bus and were being driven somewhere.

"It hurts, but I'm not seeing stars anymore, so that's good, right?"

Dare smiled. Ten minutes later, Jin stopped the bus. Ahead, they saw a light blue Jeep coming fast over the terrain. When the Jeep stopped a hundred yards away, they saw it was Sawyer.

They clambered out of the bus and everyone hugged Sawyer – except Jack, of course, who decided on a manly handshake instead. Sawyer looked around at all of them. "You're really here!" he said, amazed. "The son of a bitch actually did it! Locke said he was going to bring you back. Where is he?"

Dare looked down at her feet awkwardly. "John's dead," Jack answered.

"Dead? How?" Sawyer asked.

"It doesn't matter. He's gone."

"So what's up with you guys in the old Dharma jump suits?" Hurley asked.

"You didn't tell them?" Sawyer asked, looking at Jin.

"No," Jin replied. "I was waiting for you."

"Tell us what?" Adonia asked.

"We're in the Dharma Initiative," Sawyer replied.

"They came back to the island?" Jack asked.

"No," Sawyer said. "We came back and so did you. It's 1977."

"Uh… What?" Hurley said.


	22. Sawyer's Plan

"So you're telling that you've been here, living with the Dharma Initiative for the past three years?" Jack asked. They were all sitting together in the clearing. Sawyer had explained everything as best he could. Dare still couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"That's right," Sawyer said. "How long has it been for you since the chopper?"

"Three years," Dare answered.

Over Jin's walkie, they heard a familiar voice: "Hey, Jin, this is Miles. Where are you? Over."

Jin took up the walkie and said to Sawyer, "If I don't report in soon, they'll send out a patrol. What should we do with them?"

"Dude," Hurley said. "Your English is awesome."

"What we do," Sawyer replied, ignoring Hurley's truthful comment, "is bring them in."

"Bring us in where?" Dare asked, feeling uneasy.

"Back to the Barracks," Sawyer said. "Dharmaville. You can't be wandering around in the jungle with the hostiles."

"Hostiles?" Kate inquired.

"The Others," Sawyer clarified.

"What about everyone else from the plane?" Dare asked. "They could still be out there."

"What do you mean everyone else?" Jin asked.

"We didn't come back alone," Jack said. "Sayid was on the plane, too. Lapidus. And Sun."

Jin jumped up and ran to the Jeep.

"Hold on!" Sawyer called, running after him. "We've got to think about this!"

But Jin drove off.

"All right," Sawyer said, coming back. "Listen, you guys have got to stay put. Don't go nowhere. Don't do nothing until I can figure out how the hell to explain where you came from." He left in the van.


	23. Dress the Part

They waited for Sawyer to come back impatiently in the clearing. Dare wrung her hands nervously. Adonia noticed and said, "What are you worried about?"

"You mean other than the fact that we're stuck in the past, we have no idea how to get back, and the other people on that plane might be dead? Nothing. I'm not worried about anything."

Adonia shook her head. "I'm sure everything will be fine," she said.

"So," Kate said to Jack, "the woman that told you how to come back, did she mention that it would be thirty years ago?"

"Nope, no, she left that part out."

"So, what are we supposed to do now?"

"I'm not sure yet."

"Sawyer's back!" Hurley announced.

Sawyer was indeed back and with lots of hippie clothes, too. "All right listen," he said. "You're all going to be the second batch of recruits coming off the sub pulling into port right now, so we ain't got much time. Nice suit, doc." He looked at Jack. "Not exactly island wear. Try this." He tossed a shirt at Jack.

"You want us to say that we were on the sub?" Dare asked. "How's that going to work?"

"Everyone gets knocked out before the trip," Sawyer answered, "so no one meets each other until we process them."

"We need to find the rest of the people from the plane," Dare said confidently.

"If there was a plane," Sawyer said, "Jin will find it. So we've got about ten minutes before intake or you're all going to be camping in the jungle for a long time. There aren't another batch of recruits due for six months."

"I vote for not camping," Hurley said.

Sawyer removed his glasses. "Trust me. Do what I say and everything will be fine. Let's move."


	24. Wipe Out

Back in the van, Adonia and Dare were in the very back, Jack and Kate in the middle, and Sawyer and Hurley in the front. "So it's 1977," Hurley said.

"Yep," Sawyer answered.

"And you guys are all members of the Dharma Initiative."

"Yep."

"You do realize those dudes get wiped out, right? I saw the pit where all the bodies get dumped."

"What about it?"

"Well, aren't you going to warn them? Aren't you going to stop it from happening?"

"I ain't here to play Nostradamus to these people. Besides, Faraday's got some interesting theories on what we can and can't do here."

Adonia leaned forward. "Did you say Faraday? He's here?"

"Not anymore," Sawyer said.


	25. Welcome To Dharmaville

They drove up to the Barracks. There was music playing and it was a party atmosphere. A big sign greeted them: Welcome New Recruits. Sawyer stopped the van and got out. Everyone else followed him. He gave them each a lei. "Put these on and listen up. Juliet's got it worked out so that your names are going to be on a list, all right? So, when you get in there, just watch the little meet and greet video and wait for them to call your name. When they do, just smile, step up and take your jump suits and work assignments."

"Work assignments?" Jack asked.

"Yeah, don't worry, I've got it covered. Just remember to act a little doped up, you just got off the sub."

"What if they start asking us questions we can't answer," Hurley asked. "Like who's president in 1977?"

"It's not a damn game show, Hugo. Besides, I'm going to be in there to get your backs, all right? Let's move."

Dare looked over at Adonia and saw that she was nervously scanning the people milling about around them.

"Who're you looking for?" Dare said jokingly. "You know someone who was in the Dharma Initiative in 1977?"

Adonia shook her head. "Nothing. No one. Come on." They followed Sawyer.

As they started to walk in, Miles drove up. He got out and said, "LaFleur, where've you been? I've been trying to reach you on the walkie." He looked over and noticed Dare, Adonia, Hurley, Kate and Jack. "What the hell are they doing here?"

Sawyer pasted on a fake smile and put his arm around Miles. They walked away so Dare couldn't hear anymore.


	26. New Recruits

Inside the room, Adonia and Dare were watching the welcome film hosted by Pierre Chang.

"How are we going to do this?" Adonia asked.

"Belacqua, Genavieve Belacqua," said a man behind a desk.

"Haven't heard that last name in a while," Dare said. She walked over to where a man named Phil (indicated by his own custom jump suit) was sitting. Dare noticed the sign above him read "Inoculation." He told Dare to sit under another sign that read "Uniforms".

She goes over and the same Chinese man who made all the tapes walked up to her. "Of course it isn't here," he said. It was surreal – like meeting a celebrity.

"What's that?" Dare asked.

"Your file," he replied. "Could they be any more disorganized on the other side? Sorry," he smiled at Dare and they shook hands. "Namaste. I'm Pierre Chang. Welcome to the Dharma Initiative." He sat. "How was your ride in?"

"Fine," Dare replied easily.

"Good. Who was your shuttle driver?"

Dare hesitated. "Um. LaFleur."

"Good man, LaFleur." Dare breathed a sigh of relief. Pierre continued talking: "He runs a very tight operation." He looked through some index cards. "I'm sorry for the disorganization. The woman who was supposed to process you in had a baby last night and I got pulled out of my lab." He pulled out an index card and said, "Ah, here it is. Your job assignment." He put a jump suit on the desk in front of Dare. She read her name on it. Above was the Dharma logo and it read "Nurse". Dare grinned.

Dare went back to Adonia who had also been given her own jump suit. "What'd you get?" Dare asked.

Adonia held up her logo. "Security," she said. "Guess I'm sticking with Sawyer."

They looked over when they heard people talking and were surprised to see Juliet. "I wonder who else is here," Dare said.

"Me too," Adonia agreed. She glanced around at the people, but her hopes were only depleted when she saw no sign of Daniel Faraday.


	27. Grandpa?

They all assembled for a picture outside. "Say Namaste!" the photographer said.

"Namas-what?" Hurley asked Dare. She laughed.

Phil walked over to them after the picture was taken and said, "Right on. You guys have the rest of the day to get acquainted with your security protocol handbooks waiting in your new digs. Now some of it may seem a little scary, but I promise you all we are perfectly safe here. So, make yourselves at home, we have hamburgers, we have punch."

Dare looked over and saw Sawyer driving in on a bus. Phil held his hands up and spoke to the new recruits. "Okay, if I can get everyone to hold back, please, we have a minor security situation."

A man by the name of Radzinsky was pushing Sayid out of the bus. Dare gasped and Adonia muttered, "Oh geez."

"I guess we found Sayid," Hurley said.

Sawyer and Phil took Sayid downstairs.

"We've only been here for an hour and already we're stirring up trouble," Adonia noted.

"Who's the kid?" Dare asked, looking at a little boy standing on his own across the lawn.

"That's my son." A man who Dare hadn't previously noticed before came forward. "Welcome to hell," he said. "I'm Roger. Roger Linus."

"Linus," Dare repeated softly. "Thanks…" Roger walked off and Dare looked over at Adonia.

"That kid is Ben?" Adonia asked.

"Yeah. I guess he is."


	28. Sayid the Killer

Jack, Kate, Hurley, Dare, and Adonia worked at the Dharma Initiative for a week. They got updates on Sayid from Sawyer every once in a while. Sawyer soon informed them that the Dharma people had voted on executing Sayid.

The same night of their decision, Dare was walking back to the house that she and Adonia shared when she smelled something burning. Moments later, a bus – set aflame and moving fast – crashed right into a Dharma house. Panic struck. People poured out of their homes. Security was immediately asked to meet.

"Be safe!" Dare called after Adonia, who was running out of the house pulling her coveralls on.

Adonia looked back and gave a thumbs up.

"My son! Where is my son!" Dare whipped around to see Roger running towards the fire. He pulled a security guy aside and started yelling.

Dare started looking around. She wasn't sure if you could change the future, but she didn't much fancy the idea of never being born. As she was walking back, searching for Ben, she passed Jin. She heard Sawyer on his walkie and only heard him say Sayid had escaped. Suddenly, Dare realized who exactly would set a bus on fire and send it hurtling towards a house. Someone who would allow others to be mindlessly hurt in an effort to get what he wanted.

"Take me with you," Dare said, grabbing Jin's shoulder.

"But, it's for security only!" He started walking away, towards the closest bus.

"I'm not asking," Dare replied. She hopped into the passenger's side and Jin got into the driver's seat. They drove into the jungle, following a narrow road for five minutes until finally they saw the dark outline of a figure who quickly dove into the underbrush.

Dare and Jin hopped out and looked around. Sayid came out of the jungle, hands up innocently. "It's okay," he said. "Sawyer let me go."

Phil came back on Jin's walkie and said, "Has anyone seen the prisoner?"

"Let me just check in with Sawyer first," Jin started to say. Sayid knocked him out with the butt of a gun.

Dare fled. She prayed Sayid wouldn't shoot – she didn't believe he would kill her, but he wasn't beyond shooting to maim. She took to the jungle. Twenty feet in, she turned and listened. She heard Sayid speaking. Was he talking to Jin? Suddenly, a shot rang out. Dare gasped. If Jin died, it would be like it happened twice for Sun. Dare crept out of the woods and positioned herself behind the van. She spied Jin but couldn't tell in the dark whether or not he'd been shot. Then, she looked farther up the road and saw a body in the headlights. Sayid was gone.

She ran to Jin and checked his pulse. He was still alive. A second later, his eyes fluttered open. He pressed his hand against his forehead.

"You okay?" Dare asked.

"Yes." He looked around and spotted the body in the headlights. "Ben."

"What?"

"Ben." Jin pointed to the body.

Dare stood. She heard Jin get on the walkie. She ran towards the body and saw that it was indeed young Benjamin Linus. He was still breathing, but Sayid had shot true – the bullet had barely missed his heart. "Help me," Ben whispered.

"I will," Dare answered. "It's going to be okay." She lifted Ben's body and Jin opened the side door of the van. Dare laid him on the seat. "Let's go," she said. "We have to get him to the sick bay."


	29. Just A Kid

"Okay, everyone, listen up," Horace announced to his security team. "We don't know yet if another attack is coming. So everyone needs to be ready for your security assignments, okay? Make sure you're in contact with your team leaders. LaFleur's got search parties out, but the hostile's got a good jump on us. We're pretty sure he used this fire as a diversion in order to escape."

"I'm sorry," Adonia cut in. "But if he was locked up, how did he start the fire?"

"Who are you?" Horace asked.

"Adonia Sterling. I'm new."

"Well, Adonia, the way he started the fire is he had help, okay? Somebody torched that van and then that somebody let him out of his cell. And since the security cameras didn't pick up any hostiles crossing the perimeter. That means it was one of us." Horace turned to another security person. "Baxter, I want a full report on clean up, A.S.A.P."

"You got it boss."

Adonia looked at Jack, who seemed extremely concerned. "I'm sure he's fine," Adonia said under her breath.

Jack put his hand on Adonia's shoulder. "I know," he said. "But we might not be."

Then, Adonia saw a van pull up and Jin stepped out of the driver's side. To her surprise, Dare also got out of the van. Adonia ran up and watched as Dare and Jin went around to the side of the van and Jin pulled out a body – a child.

"Who is it?" Adonia asked. Dare didn't respond, she seemed too intent on following Jin as he carried the kid into the hospital. "Dare!" Adonia grabbed Dare's shoulder and whipped her around.

"It's Ben!" Dare snapped. She turned back and followed Jin into the makeshift operating room.

Adonia stopped walking for a moment, then she caught up with Dare. "Sayid did this?" she asked.

Dare nodded. "He shot him in cold blood."

"Cold blood? Ben's not exactly innocent."

Juliet was in the hospital and started hooking Ben up to IVs.

Dare looked furious. "He's a goddamn kid, Adonia! How can you be like that?"

"How can _you_ be like that?" Adonia shouted back. "He _shot_ Desmond, threatened you and possibly your son. Sayid did us a _favor_."

"I'm going to have to ask you both to leave," Juliet said seriously.

"I'm not leaving," Dare said immediately. "I'm a nurse."

"Now, we both know that's not true. Adonia and Jin, please leave. I need to have a word with Genavieve," Juliet said. Adonia looked annoyed, but Jin led her out anyway.

"I know this is hard for you," Juliet said once they were alone, "but if you want to keep lying to everyone, you need to stop caring about Ben's wellbeing so much. I read your file, Genavieve. I know Ben's your father."

Dare swallowed hard. "Don't say-"

"I'm not going to," Juliet assured her. "I'm trying to help you. And right now, Ben needs space. So please leave."

Dare placed the back of her hand on her forehead. "Fine," she said, "but I want to know if _anything_ happens, okay?"

Juliet nodded and Dare left.

Adonia, Jin, and to Dare's surprise, Roger were all standing outside the hospital door. "How is he? How is my boy?" Roger asked Dare.

"Juliet's doing all she can. All we can do is wait," Dare replied with a forced smile.

"Where is the doctor?" Jin asked.

"The Looking Glass until Friday," Dare answered.

Twenty long minutes later, Sawyer walked up and looked at everyone gathered. "How is Ben?" he asked.

"We don't know," Roger answered.

"Let me see if I can get an update for you," Sawyer said.

"Thanks, Jim," he said.

Sawyer started to go inside and said, "Roger, do you happen to have your keys with you?"

"Yeah, why, what do you need?" he asked, feeling around his pockets for them. "I must have left them at the house."

"That's okay, don't worry about it." Sawyer went inside.

Miles walked up and said, "I'm going to need you to come with me."

"Who?" Adonia asked.

"All of you. Except him." He pointed to Roger. "Horace wants to see you."

Dare saw he was lying, but followed him anyway. He led them into a house where Jack, Kate, and Hurley were already all inside.

"What is this?" Dare asked. "A party?"

Miles shut the door. He picked up the rifle and cocked it.

"You're telling us we're under house arrest?" Jack asked.

"No, you're all free to leave whenever you want, but I'll shoot you in the leg," Miles said.

Jack sighed. "And whose idea was this?"

"Who do you think?" Miles asked.

"Sawyer is just doing his job, Jack," Kate said.

Dare was avoiding eye contact with Adonia – their fight earlier had obviously not blown over yet. Adonia was itching to know what Dare was keeping from her and why she wasn't as angry at Ben as Adonia was.

Hurley was in the corner staring at his hand. Miles said, "What the hell are you doing, tubby?"

"Checking to see if I'm disappearing," Hurley said.

"What?"

"_Back To the Future_, man. We came back in time to the island and changed stuff, so if little Ben dies, he'll never grow up to be big Ben, who was the one who made us come back here in the first place. Which means we can't be here, and therefore, dude, we don't exist."

"You're an idiot." Miles sat.

"Am I?"

"Yeah, it doesn't work like that. You can't change anything. Your maniac Iraqi buddy shot Linus, that is what always happened, it's just we never experienced how it all turns out."

"That was really confusing," Hurley said.

"Yeah, well, get used to it," Miles responded. "But the good news is that Linus didn't die, so that means the kid can't either. He'll be fine."

"Didn't look like he was going to be fine," Kate said. "What if you're wrong?"

"Well, if I'm wrong," Miles said, "then I guess we all stop existing and none of it matters anyway, then does it?"

Sawyer came in and said, "Doc, I need you to come with me." He looked really flustered.

"Come with you where?" Jack asked.

"Juliet said the kid's losing blood and we ain't got none to put back in him. So we need you to show us where he sprung a leak."

"No," Jack said.

Dare stood, her anger just about to boil over.

Kate stared at him.

"What?" Sawyer said.

"No, I'm not coming with you," Jack said with contempt.

"If you don't come with me, Jack, the kid's going to die."

"Then he dies."

"You can't do that!" Dare shouted. Sawyer turned and walked away.

"What the hell are you doing?" Kate asked Jack.

"Making sandwiches. I figured everyone should be getting hungry right about now."

"He's just a boy, Jack. You can't just let him die."

"You heard Miles. We can't change what's already happened. This has nothing to do with me."

"Unless you're the one who is supposed to save him," Dare said.

Adonia walked up to Dare and said, "Thirty years from now, that little boy is going to be the man that locks me, Kate, and Sawyer in a cage and Jack in a room because he needs surgery. And then we have to go and _beg_ Jack to save his life so they won't kill Sawyer. We've already done this. Jack's saved Benjamin Linus' life once and he doesn't need to do it again."

"This is our fault," Dare said. "We brought Sayid back! We caused this!"

Jack spoke up. "When we were here before I spent all of my time trying to fix things. But did you ever think that maybe the island just wants to fix things itself? And maybe I was just getting in the way?"

"You know," Kate said, "I don't like the new you. I like the old you who wouldn't just sit around and wait for things to happen."

"You didn't like the old me, Kate."

Kate and Dare exchanged a look before walking out of the house together. "Hey, where are you going?" Miles asked, derelict in his duties.


	30. Giving Blood

Back in the infirmary, Dare was being hooked up to an IV by Juliet. Kate was there looking extremely upset about the fight.

"So, James said that Jack wouldn't help, but he didn't say why," Juliet said.

"If I understood why Jack does what he does, I sure as hell wouldn't be sitting here," Kate said, eyeing Dare's arm that was now having blood pumped out of it. "No offense," Kate added.

"None taken," Dare said.

Suddenly, Roger burst into the room, out of breath.

"Roger, I asked you to wait outside," Juliet said.

"I want to know what is going on with my kid!" he demanded.

"Genavieve is giving us some fresh blood so we can transfuse Ben."

"Well, I'm not waiting outside," he said.

"He can stay with me," Dare said. "And you can check on Ben. Roger can keep me company, too."

"Actually, I think I need some air," Kate said. "It's been a long night."

"Okay," Juliet said. She walked back to Ben's bed.

"Thank you," Roger said. Dare looked at the man and smiled. She ached to ask him so many questions. Not once in her life did she ever think she was actually going to meet her real parents, let alone her grandparents. "He stole my keys," Roger said.

"What?" Dare asked.

"LaFleur asked me where my keys were. The bastard doesn't ask any questions he doesn't know the answers to. Which means my son stole my keys so he could bust that animal out of jail."

"Why would he do that?" Dare asked.

"Because of me. You got kids?"

"Yeah," Dare said with a small smile.

"Then you must know what it's like. You try to be everything for them and it's exhausting. I thought I was going to be the greatest father ever. Guess it didn't work out that way."

"What about his mother? Is she still around?"

"No. She's dead. She died the day he was born." Roger looked down at his hands.

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah, me too. I tried to do what I thought she'd want me to do, but I guess a boy just needs his mother."

Dare felt extremely guilty then, but Roger didn't notice because Ben started breathing heavily.

"What's going on?" Roger shouted, standing in anger.

"He's going into hypoxic shock," Juliet said.

"What does that mean?" Roger asked. "What's wrong with him?"

"He needs more oxygen. Roger, get out of here."

"What?"

Juliet instructed a nurse to get Roger out and she obliged.


	31. Enlist Help

Roger was pacing outside the infirmary. Dare, who had given more blood than she probably should have, was sitting on the steps feeling weak. Juliet came out and Roger asked how Ben was.

"He's stable," Julet said.

"Is he going to be okay?" Dare asked.

"He's got some fresh blood running through him, which is a good thing. Roger, I need you to go to the medical station. There's some supplies there that we don't have here." He took the list Juliet handed to him and left.

"Is he any better?" Dare asked.

"He is stable now, but I can't fix it."

"What about the sub? Can we take him somewhere?"

Kate walked up, having come back from her walk and Juliet went silent.

"It's okay," Dare said. "Kate's the one who told me in the first place."

"Told you what?" Kate asked.

"Ben's my father."

Kate nodded knowingly.

"How…?" Juliet asked.

"When Sawyer, Adonia, and I escaped from your cages on the other island with Karl," Kate explained, "Alex came to us and gave me a paper. It was all of Dare's information. Alex didn't tell me what it was. I thought… I didn't think it was personal or I wouldn't have looked."

"I know," Dare said. "We already talked about this. But, Juliet, can you tell me one thing?"

She nodded.

"If Ben dies… What happens to me?"

"I don't think he can die. Daniel Faraday said that if it didn't happen before, it can't happen. But…"

"But…?"

"But, it was just a theory. We need to get Ben some help and Jack is the only person who can do that. Unless... Unless we ask them."

"Them?"

"The Others," Juliet said.


	32. Richard

Dare and Kate took the Dharma bus with Ben inside to the sonic fence. Sawyer soon joined them and helped them transport the stolen Ben into the jungle before them.

"Why would Ben do this?" Kate asked.

"Kid will do almost anything if he's pissed off enough at his folks." Sawyer shifted Ben so he was carrying the boy in front of him.

"Put your hands up!" a man yelled from beyond their sight. Suddenly they were surrounded by Others. "This is a violation of the truce," said the same man who yelled before. "You're over the line."

"We know," Sawyer said. "This kid's been shot and it's both of our problems. So unless you want to go to war, you're going to take us to Richard Alpert, and you're going to do it now."

They eventually agreed to lead them to their camp. Ten minutes later, Richard stepped out of the jungle, seemingly from nowhere. "Hello, James," he said.

"Where the hell did you come from?" Sawyer asked, taking a step back.

"You asked my people to bring you to me. Here I am. Is that Benjamin Linus?" Richard stepped forward and took a good look at Ben.

"Do you know him?" Dare asked.

"What happened to him?" Richard said, ignoring Dare's question.

"He was shot," Dare said.

"And who might you be?"

"She's with us," Sawyer said protectively.

"And why are you here?" Richard asked.

"Because we need you to save his life," Dare replied. "Can you?"

Richard looked down at Ben again. "If I take him," he said, "he's never going to be the same again."

"What do you mean?" Dare asked.

"What I mean is, he'll forget this ever happened and his innocence will be gone. He will always be one of us. You still want me to take him?"

Dare and Kate exchanged a look. Whatever Richard was about to do might be the reason Ben is the way he is in the future.

"Yes," Sawyer answered. "Take him." Sawyer handed Ben over to Richard.

A man stepped forward and said, "Richard, you shouldn't do this without asking Ellie. If Charles finds out -."

"Let him find out," Richard cut in. "I don't answer to either of them." He walked away.

"Where are you taking him?" Dare called after Richard. She started to follow, but Sawyer stopped her.


	33. Miles' Job

"Miles, you there?" Sawyer spoke into his walkie just as he, Kate, and Dare got back to the sonic fence.

"Jim, where the hell are you?" Miles replied.

"I'll fill you in later. Right now I need you to take care of something."

Sawyer told him to erase the security tapes. Miles agreed. Then, Sawyer turned to Dare and Kate, who were leaning on the Dharma bus waiting for the next step of the plan. "I want you two to go back and find Juliet. See if anyone's noticed that little Ben's gone missing."

"What are you going to do when they find out?" Kate asked.

"I'll do my best to cover it up. In case you haven't noticed, I'm head of security. All right, I'll see you back there."


	34. Grid 334

Miles ejected the Dharma surveillance tape from camera number four just as Adonia came down the stairs followed closely by Horace who was carrying a rolled up bag.

"Where's LaFleur?" Adonia asked.

"Uh, he's, uh, out looking for the escaped prisoner," Miles answered lamely. "I tried to get him on his walkie, but, uh, he must be out of range."

"Dammit," Horace said. Adonia shot a look at Miles while Horace had his back turned. "All right. Then it's going to have to be you and Adonia," Horace said. "Can I trust you two?"

"Absolutely," Adonia said confidently. Miles nodded.

"Okay, good." He tossed the bag to Miles. "I need you to take this out to Radzinsky at grid 334. He's going to give you something in return. I want you to bring it back to me with no questions asked. You understand?"

Miles nodded.

"Um, we're not supposed to be in 334. Isn't that hostile territory?" Adonia asked.

"Welcome to the circle of trust," Horace said darkly.


	35. Corpse

Miles and Adonia drove down the road. Suddenly, Radzinsky popped out of nowhere, brandishing his gun. "Stop right there!" he shouted. Miles slammed on the breaks. "Miles? What are you doing here? I was expecting LaFleur."

"LaFleur's busy," Miles said. "Horace sent us instead. We're in the circle of trust."

"Get out!" Radzinsky yelled. Miles and Adonia got out of the van.

"We're supposed to give you this and he said you had something for us," Adonia said. She tossed the bag to Radzinsky. Radzinsky rolled out the bag and whistled. It was a body bag. Radzinsky laid it flat on the ground.

Two men in hard hats came out of the jungle carrying a body on a stretcher.

"What happened to him?" Miles asked.

"He had an accident," Radzinsky said bluntly.

"What kind of accident?" Miles inquired.

"He fell into a ditch."

Miles and Adonia looked down at the body as the men in the hard hats laid it next to the body bag. "Is that a bullet hold in his head?" Miles asked.

"The ditch had a gun," Adonia remarked.

"It doesn't matter what happened to him because knowing that is not your job. Your job is to do what I tell you to." Radzinsky was starting to get angry.

The body was thrown into the back of the van. "Take him back to Horace now," Radzinsky said. He and the two other men clambered back into the jungle. Once they were out of sight, Adonia said, "Are you gonna check it out or not?"

"Let's see what really happened," Miles agreed. He hopped into the back of the van and unzipped the body bag.


	36. Car Pool

Miles and Adonia returned to the security room where Horace was on the phone: "Pierre, if it was connected to the electromagnetism, we need to know. You want to see it now? Yeah, they just got back. I'll send them out with it right away. Okay!" Horace slammed the phone down. "Did you bring the package?"

"By package you mean the corpse," Adonia said.

"Yeah. Now I need you to bring it out to Dr. Chang at the Orchid."

Adonia looked worried. "Listen, if you just need someone to drive the van, can't someone from the motor pool do it?"

"If I'd wanted someone from the motor pool, I would have asked them. And since LaFleur decided to disappear, you're all I've got. So just bring it out to Dr. Chang and we'll all call it a day. Okay?"

Miles and Adonia went out to the bus where Hurley was loading some ice chests in the back.

"Hey! What the hell are you doing?" Miles shouted. "That's our van."

"No, dude, I just signed it out."

"Doesn't matter, it's ours."

"Where you going?"

"The Orchid."

"Me too. I made lunch for the crew. Sandwiches. Want one? Ham and cheese, and I made my secret garlic mayo."

"You're waiting for the next van," Miles said.

"Why? We're going to the same place. Why don't we carpool? It will help with global warming. Which hasn't happened yet, so maybe we can prevent it. Wait a sec, are you on some kind of secret mission?"

Adonia shook her head.


	37. Ben's Missing

Kate and Dare arrived back at the infirmary. Inside, Juliet was putting things away in a cupboard.

"How'd it go?" Juliet asked as the other two girls walked in.

"We gave him to them. To the Others," Dare said nervously.

"Did anyone see you?"

"I don't think so," Kate answered.

"Did James help?"

"Yes. Thank you so much for sending him."

"Of course."

Roger burst into the room, holding supplies. "I got here as soon as I could. All the vans were out, so I had to run." He looked over and saw Ben's empty bed. "Where's Ben? Did he-?"

"No, no Roger," Juliet said reassuringly. "I'm so sorry. I was gone for ten minutes. I don't know -."

"What?" Roger said. "You said he was _dying_! How could he be gone?"

"I don't know."

Roger walked over to Dare. "What is she telling me? That he just got up and walked out?"

"We don't know, Roger," Dare said. "I'm sorry."

He turned back to Juliet and yelled, "You're his doctor! You're supposed to watch him!"

"I know, I know." Juliet sighed. "Roger, if we just calm down -."

"Don't tell me to calm down! Somebody came and took my boy out of here!"

"I know. I am so sorry."

"I'm going to security." Roger ran out of the infirmary in a panic.

"Well, here we go," Juliet said.


	38. Supernatural

Miles drove down the road toward the Orchid station with Adonia in the passenger seat and Hurley in the back. Hurley announced something smelled foul and made the unfortunate choice of looking in the back.

"Dude, there's a body bag back here with a body in it."

"That's traditionally what you put in a body bag," Adonia said.

"Yeah, well who is he? What happened?"

"Don't worry about it," Miles said. "And don't tell anybody you saw him."

"Dude, what happened to him?" Hurley asked again.

"His name's Alvarez," Miles responded. "He was digging a hole and thinking about some chick named Andrea. Then he felt this sharp pain in his mouth, which turned out to be a filling in his tooth being yanked right out of its socket and blowing through his brain. Then, he was dead."

"How does a filling get blown through someone's head?" Hurley asked, turning back around in his seat.

"You got me," Miles said.

"How did you know what he was thinking?" Hurley asked.

"I don't know. Just shut up about it, okay?"

"You can talk to dead people," Hurley realized.

Miles was silent. Adonia looked over at him – she'd already known that from her experience with Miles in the jungle with Naomi's body.

"Don't worry, dude, your secret is safe with me. Do you want to know why?"

"No."

"Because I can talk to them, too."

Both Miles and Adonia turned back to look at Hurley in astonishment.


	39. Suspicious Minds

Dare walked out of the infirmary, feeling extremely nervous. She saw Roger sitting on the swing set, so she went over and asked if he was okay.

"Well, let's see," he said, swirling a beer can around in his hand. "My son got shot and now he's disappeared, so I think I'm pretty far from okay."

"You know, I'm sure things are going to work out."

He gives her a beer. "Thanks for the pep talk."

Dare smiled. "I just have a feeling everything is going to be okay."

"What do you mean a feeling?"

"I just don't think you should give up hope."

"Do you know something? Do you know what happened to my son?" Roger gripped the swing hard.

"No, I don't." Dare got up.

"Wait a minute. Why are you so interested in my kid?"

"I'm sorry I came over here, all right? I was just trying to help."

"Oh, you're trying to help, huh? You want to help? Why don't you just mind your own business?"

Dare walked away.


	40. Douche Dad

"I don't know why you don't just admit it," Hurley said. "You can trust me. I talk to lots of dead people."

"Am I really hearing this conversation?" Adonia asked.

"So, you have conversations with them like they're your pals?" Miles asked.

"Sure, all the time. Sometimes we even play chess."

Adonia turned and looked back at Hurley. "Like who?" she asked.

"Mr. Eko, normally. Sometimes Charlie comes by."

"Okay, that's not funny," Adonia said.

"I'm not joking."

"You actually see them?" Miles asked.

"Of course, why wouldn't I?"

"Because that's not how it works."

"Aha!" Hurley said. "You wouldn't know how it works unless you can do it!"

"What I can do has nothing to do with chatting up ghosts, you nitwit. It's a feeling. A sense. When somebody's dead their brain stops functioning, which means there's no more talking. There's just who they were and whatever they knew before they died."

"That's not how it worked for me."

"Great, I'm happy for you."

"You're just jealous my power's better than yours."

"Seriously, guys? Can we _not_ talk about this?" Adonia asked.

"We're here anyway. Now shut the hell up and deliver your damn sandwiches." Miles stopped in front of the Orchid Station structure. He and Adonia helped Hurley unload the ice chests.

Pierre walked over and asked Miles, "What's he doing here?" He looked at Hurley.

"Um," Miles said, "he came to deliver lunch to the work crew."

"Lunch? Your instructions were to come alone."

Hurley said, "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone about the body."

Adonia sighed deeply.

Pierre stopped. "He knows?"

"I'm sorry, sir. He was rooting around in the back and he saw it," Adonia said.

"Dude, I can keep a secret," Hurley promised.

"Well you better," Pierre looked at Hurley's name on his uniform, "Hurley. Because if you think working in the kitchen is bad-"

"I like the kitchen," Hurley said.

"Well, how do you feel about polar bear feces? Because if you breathe one word of this, I'll have you shipped to Hydra island so you can weigh turds for their ridiculous experiments."

"Gross."

Pierre told two of the crew to get the package out of the bus. Two men ran over and got it.

"And you," Pierre said to Adonia and Miles, "hang out here until I get back. Do you think you can handle that?"

"Yes, sir," Adonia said.

Miles, Adonia, and Hurley leaned against the bus and watched Pierre yelling at members of his crew.

Hurley says, "Dude, that guy's a total douche."

"That douche is my dad."


	41. What Body?

Hurley was eating a sandwich while he, Adonia, and Miles waited for Pierre to return. "So, anyway," Hurley said.

"I don't want to talk about it," Miles replied.

"Are you kidding me?" Adonia said. "How weird is it that your dad is the guy from all those movies? Only back then he was called Marvin Candle. Is that a stage name?"

"What part of 'I don't want to talk about it' isn't sinking in with you guys?"

"Well, if you didn't want to talk about it, why'd you tell us? How long have you known he was your dad?" Adonia asked.

"The third day we were here I was inline at the cafeteria and my mother got in line behind me. That was my first clue."

"But all those Dharma dudes end up dead." Hurley pointed out. "Don't you want to save him?"

"I can't save him. They're going to get killed no matter what I do, so why bother?"

Pierre walked over and said, "I need you to take me to Radzinsky at the work site, immediately. You, Hurley, you say a word-"

"Polar bear poop, got it," Hurley finished. He packed up the ice chests.

"What happened to the body?" Adonia asked. 

"What body?" Pierre replied. They got in the bus.


	42. Daddy Issues and Dare's History

Miles drove the bus through the jungle. Pierre was sitting in the passenger seat and Hurley and Adonia sat in the back.

Hurley said, "So, I'm new here, Dr. Chang. What is it exactly you do at the Orchid?"

"It's classified," he replied bluntly.

"Oh really, you can't tell anyone? Not even your wife?"

"No."

"What about your kids?"

"I have a three month old son, so, no I haven't told him."

"Three months, wow, congrats! What's his name?"

"Miles."

"Small world," Adonia said. "That's your name too, right Miles?"

"Yeah," Miles said.

"So, you a fan of jazz, Dr. Chang?" Hurley asked. "Like Miles Davis?"

"My wife is," Pierre said. "I like country."

Miles gave Pierre an incredulous look.

"So you two have been here for three years now," Hurley said. "Must be pretty tight, huh?"

"Dr. Chang and I don't exactly travel in the same circles," Miles said.

"I wasn't aware there were circles," Pierre replied.

Hurley said, "Great! We should all get together for a beer sometime. How awesome would that be?"

"Stop here," Pierre said.

Miles stopped and Pierre got out. He opened a big gate covered in leaves. Pierre got back in and they drove onto a work site. Pierre got out again and said, "You don't need to wait. I'll get a ride back with Radzinsky."

Hurley climbed into the front seat and said, "Dude, what is this place and what's up with all the secrecy?"

"Don't know, don't care."

Hurley watched two men working. One said, "Hey, Glen, what's the serial number that goes on the hatch slip?"

Glen replied, "4, 8," and the man stamped them in. "15, 16, 23, hold on a minute, it's smudged."

"Forty-two," Hurley said. Adonia held her breath. It couldn't be…

"Forty-two," Glen said.

"How the hell did you know that?" Miles asked.

"Because, they're building our hatch," Adonia answered for him.

"What hatch?"

"The one that crashed our plane," she said, horrified.

It was nighttime as Miles, Adonia, and Hurley drove through the jungle, headed back to Dharmaville.

"That hatch they're building," Adonia said from the back, "there's going to be an accident. Then they're going to have to build a computer with a button that you have to push so the world doesn't end every 108 minutes."

Miles snorts.

"So your dad," Hurley said, "was he around, you know, where we came from, the future?"

"No."

"Well then this is kind of awesome for you, huh?"

"How is it awesome?"

"Because you get to hang out with him, you know, get to know him better and stuff. Don't bother thanking me, but he was totally down for that beer, dude. You know, maybe he'll let you hold baby you or you can change your diaper."

Miles slammed on the brakes. "Listen up, because we're only going to have this conversation once, okay? I don't want to hang out with my dad. I don't want to know him better and stuff."

"Why not? Did he beat you up when you were little or something?"

"He wasn't even around when I was little, you dimwit! I never knew him, until now. Why am I even telling you this?"

"Because you're in pain and you need to let it out."

"I'm not in pain! It doesn't matter. My father is dead. He's dead. He's gone. He never cared about me. And nothing I can do will ever change that."

"But he's not gone. We just dropped him off," Adonia pointed out. "You know… I never knew my dad either. My mom always told me he just didn't want me, so he left when he found out she was pregnant. What kind of person does that? I put up this front that I never want to find him – that I don't want to know who he is, but I really do. I really, really do. Somehow I just know he can't be that terrible of a person, you know? Like somehow it was all just a big misunderstanding and when I find him he'll be this perfect guy. Your dad, Miles, is a good guy. I can tell. And you should feel lucky that you get to see him again."

"I used to hate my dad, too, dude," Hurley said.

"Yeah?" Miles asked.

"He left when I was 10. But the best thing I ever did was give him a second chance."

They arrived at the Motor Pool and parked. Everyone got out and Hurley put gas in the bus. "And although I may never see him again," Hurley continued, "I miss him. And I know he feels the same."

"My dad didn't leave when I was 10. I was a baby. I never knew him. And I don't want to. It's not happening," Miles said.

"That was Luke's attitude too."

"What?"

In Empire, Luke found out Vader was his father, but instead of putting down the lightsaber and talking about it, he overreacted and got his hand cut off. I mean, they worked it out eventually, but at what cost? Another Death Star was destroyed. Boba Fett got eaten by the Sarlacc and we got the Ewoks. It all could have been avoided if they'd just, you know, communicated. Let's face it, Ewoks suck, dude."

Miles walked away. Adonia saw him outside his father's house. She figured he needed some privacy. "I'm going to go home and change," she told Hurley. He nodded and she left. Once inside, she saw Dare at the dining room table staring into space.

"Hi," Adonia said.

"Oh, hey. I didn't hear you come in," Dare replied, wiping a tear away.

Adonia walked over and sat across from Dare at the table. "Listen, I'm really sorry about what I said. You're right –no matter what he becomes in the future, Ben is just a kid."

"Thanks," Dare said.

"How is he?"

"Um… we sort of brought him to Richard."

"Richard? You took him to the Others?" Adonia asked, shocked.

Dare nodded. "Jack wouldn't help. They were our only choice."

"Did they fix him?"

"Richard said he could, but that he would be changed – he would always be one of them or something. And they still have him."

"What? Ben's still with them? Haven't people noticed by now?"

Dare nodded. "Roger did. Everyone's on the lookout, but they think Sayid took him for now. I don't think we have much time left in Dharmaville," Dare said sadly.

"But… that's not why you're crying," Adonia guessed.

Dare smiled. "Decidedly not. I'm just… homesick, I suppose. I just keep thinking that I shouldn't have come. That Jacob was wrong. How is my being here going to stop Charles Widmore from coming after me? It doesn't make sense."

"Well, we've only been here a week," Adonia pointed out. "There's still time to change things."

"Yeah, I guess so..." Dare paused. "I think I got hit on, like, the third day we were here."

"What?"

"Some guy - I don't even remember his name. He basically asked me out. It was weird..."

Adonia laughed. "Didn't he know you were married?"

"Apparently not. It's not like I brought it up or anything. And..." she held up her left hand. "Remember when I told Desmond to hold on to my ring? Well, I sort of forgot to ask for it back."

"Oh," Adonia said. "I'm sorry. We'll go home as soon as we figure all this out."

"I hope so."

"Hey, everything's going to turn out, okay? I promise."

Dare didn't respond. "That's… not really the only reason I was crying."

"What's wrong?" Adonia asked, real concern showing on her face.

"Brendon," Dare replied. She felt new tears starting to form and she tried to hold them back.

"Brendon?" Adonia placed her hand on Dare's.

"It was my fault!" Dare exclaimed, fresh new tears bursting out. "It was all my fault! He died because of me and now I'm afraid I've done the same thing!"

"What? Dare, what are you talking about? Brendon… it was a car accident. It wasn't your fault."

Dare shook her head. She wiped tears from her face and said, "That morning, before he left for the recording studio, we agreed to go out for dinner. I was going to pick him up after he was finished. I went to leave and this man confronted me. He told me knew who I was. He said he knew what I was doing for Charles Widmore and he threatened to tell Brendon about it."

"What do you mean? What were you doing for Charles Widmore? Was it… bad?"

Dare shook her head. "No, nothing like that. But I... I lied to Brendon. I said I had stopped working for Charles Widmore because Brendon knew how dangerous he was. I had told him that Widmore was capable of anything and Brendon made me quit. Well, he made me at least _pretend_ to quit. But I didn't quit. I just lied… for months I lied and I felt terrible, but I liked Widmore. Regardless that he was cruel and ruthless and terrible, he treated me like I mattered and I wasn't worried about being hurt. I foolishly thought that as long as I did everything he told me, nothing would ever happen to Brendon or you.

"I was wrong." Dare had stopped crying, but her face was still red and her eyes puffy. "After that man confronted me and threatened to tell Brendon I was still working for Widmore, I was too freaked out to stand, let alone drive. I knew if Brendon found out, it could mean the end of us. So, I went back into the apartment and destroyed every piece of evidence that I was still working for Widmore.

"And I called Brendon and he got a cab and he got in an accident. If I hadn't lied – if I had just listened to Brendon, this wouldn't have been a problem!"

"That doesn't make it your fault," Adonia said sternly. She gave Dare a hard look. "If you had stopped working for Widmore, he could've hurt you, too. You made the right choice."

"Did I?" Dare asked, feeling beyond frustrated with herself. "I didn't have to lie. I shouldn't have lied. I should have told Brendon, but… I was so scared. I thought it would make it easier if he didn't know, but now he's dead and it's my fault. And part of me thinks Widmore was responsible for the accident, but the other part is telling me there was something familiar about the man who threatened and now I'm almost certain it was Jacob."

"Jacob?" Adonia asked in disbelief.

"That man... he threatened me, sure. But it wasn't in a very threatening way, if you understand me. He was almost charming. It was dark that night and I never got a good look at his face, but I'm almost certain that the same man who threatened me was the same that came to me and told me I could escape Widmore once and for all if I came back to the island. This goddamned island."

Adonia seemed to think for a moment. "Dare, you need to listen to me because I am telling you the honest truth when I say that Brendon's death was not your fault. It doesn't matter that you guys didn't go out to dinner, it would have happened another way if you had picked him up – hell, maybe you both would have died! It doesn't matter anymore, though, because it's over, and all that was left that needed to be remembered was the fact that he loved you and you loved him, no matter what secrets you were keeping from each other. And if Widmore or Jacob or God or the fucking Mafia was responsible for Brendon's accident, there's no way to prove it, so don't go blaming yourself. You needed a target and you chose yourself, but it doesn't have to be like that. You say that you're afraid that you made the same mistake twice, are you talking about you leaving Desmond and Charlie behind?"

Dare nodded solemnly.

"Well, just believe me when I say that they are going to be perfectly fine. We're going to get back to the right year and then we'll get home and maybe we can live our lives in peace for once."

Dare wasn't sure if Adonia was just making this up for Dare's benefit or if she genuinely believed it, but it didn't matter. Dare was extremely grateful for her words, her company, and her friendship. She couldn't take back all the mistakes she had made in the past, but she made a pact to herself to always tell those that she loved the truth, even if she thought it would be better not to. Dare smiled and Adonia smiled back.

A knock sounded at the door. Adonia answered it and found Miles. "Hey," he said. "I need your help. Some people from Ann Arbor just came in – Pierre wants us to pick them up."

"All right," Adonia said. "I'll meet you at the van."

Miles nodded and left. Adonia went back to Dare and said, "Listen, I'm going to the sub, but when I come back we can talk more, okay?"

Dare nodded. "Sure," she said. "I'll see you later."


	43. Welcome Back, Dan

At the dock, Adonia saw the submarine standing tall by the pier. People, mostly scientists, were already stumbling down the pier, toting luggage bags.

Adonia started helping people with luggage as Miles helped others up the ladder of the sub and onto the dock. Adonia threw a suitcase into the back of the van and then went back to the sub for the next group. A man asked for a hand with his suitcase and Adonia took it from him.

Then, Adonia almost dropped the whole suitcase in the water – it was Daniel Faraday.

"Dan!" Miles exclaimed.

Adonia put the suitcase down and practically leaped at Dan, hugging him tightly. "Oh my God, it's really you!" she said happily. He laughed and hugged her back.

"Hey Adonia. Long time no see."

Down the dock, Pierre Chang was talking to the newly arrived scientists. Adonia and Dan stopped hugging as Miles whispered, "What the hell are you doing back here, Dan? Once you went to Ann Arbor, I figured you'd gotten rich and invented the DVD or something."

"This," Dan said, holding up a photograph, "is what I'm doing back here." It was the picture of Adonia, Dare, Jack, Kate, and Hurley with the new recruits of the Dharma Initiative. "When did you guys get here?" he asked Adonia.

"A few days ago," Adonia said.

"It's weird, huh?" Miles said. "LaFleur-."

"We don't have time," Daniel said. He turned to Adonia. "I need to talk to you, but not here. Take me to Jack's."


	44. Eloise Was Wrong

They knocked on Jack's door. Jack answered and Daniel burst in, followed closely by Miles and Adonia. "How did you do it?" Daniel asked hurriedly, looking from Adonia to Jack. "How did you get back to the island?"

"Whoa," Jack said, holding up his hands. "Where have you been?"

"I was just at Dharma Headquarters in Ann Arbor," Dan answered. "I was doing some research. What's more important right now, how did you get back here? To 1977?"

"What's going on?" Jack asked, turning to Miles.

"Don't look at me," Miles replied. "I just carried his luggage."

"Jack, how?" Dan asked again.

"We were on a plane and then-."

"Who told you to get on a plane?" Dan asked.

"As a matter of fact," Adonia said, "it was your mother."

"And how did she convince you? Did she tell you it was your destiny, Jack?"

"Yeah," Jack answered, "that's exactly what she said."

"Well, I've got some bad news for you. You don't belong here at all. She was wrong."


	45. Hostage

Daniel ran out of the house saying, "Miles, I need you to take me to the Orchid. Can you drive me right now, please?"

"Yeah, yeah, sure," Miles said.

"I'm coming," Adonia said determinedly. She jumped into the back of the Jeep. Dan took the passenger seat.

"Come on, Miles. Come on!" Dan said.

"Faraday!" Jack called, running after them.

"Jack, I'll be right back," Dan said.

"What did you mean by your mother was wrong?" Jack asked.

"I just have an errand to run, I'll be right back." They drove away.

Jack was left standing, chewing on his lip, wondering what to do next. Dare came out of her house, having just seen Adonia, Miles, and Dan drive away in a Jeep. "Jack!" she called. She ran up to him.

"Daniel's back," he said.

"I saw," she replied. "Where the hell are they going?"

Jack shrugged. "To the Orchid, but I don't know why. Come on."

They went to Sawyer and Juliet's house and knocked. Sawyer answered. Dare could see Juliet in the background.

"Faraday's back," Jack told Sawyer.

"What do you mean Faraday's back?" Sawyer asked. "Why?"

"I have no idea. He came in on the sub. He woke me up. He started talking nonsense and then he took off to the Orchid."

"Love to trade theories with you on this, but I'm a little busy right now." Sawyer attempted to shut the door, but Jack stopped him.

"What are you busy with at 6 o'clock in the morning?" Jack asked suspiciously.

Juliet walked over. "James, tell him," she said.

"Get in here," Sawyer said. Jack and Dare went in. "Phil, one of my security guys, got himself a tape of Kate, Genavieve, and I taking the kid out to the hostiles," Sawyer explained.

"Oh God," Dare said. "Where's the tape now?"

"With Phil."

"What? Where's Phil?" Dare was beginning to feel extremely nauseous.

Sawyer opened a closet to reveal Phil, tied and gagged. "Phil, this is Jack. Jack, Phil."


	46. Dr Chang's Destiny

Dan, Miles, and Adonia arrived at the Orchid. They sat watching the workers.

"Are we waiting for something?" Miles asked.

A Dharma van drove in with Pierre Chang in the passenger seat.

"Right on time," Dan said. He watched Pierre for a second and then said, "Be back in ten minutes," and got out. Adonia and Miles watched him disappear down an elevator.

Five minutes later, Dan and Pierre both came back up. They could hear Dan going on about something, but Pierre cut him off saying, "Yes, yes, you're from the future. You heard me talking about time travel. Now you've had your fun, good for you."

Miles jumped out of the Jeep and Adonia followed suit.

"Please, Dr. Chang," Dan said. "Please, look in my journal. Some of these equations won't be discovered for another twenty years!"

Miles and Adonia ran over to them. "Hey, hey, Dan," Miles said. "Leave the man alone. Sorry, Dr. Chang. I think he had too many drugs on the sub."

"Dr. Chang," Dan said," Miles is your son."

"Excuse me?" Pierre asked.

"Think about it," Dan said. "A Chinese man, named Miles, the same name as your baby, shows up with me from the future."

Pierre looked at Miles. "Is this true?"

"No!" Miles said.

"Please," Dan begged.

"Stay away from me," Pierre responded. He got in a bus and drove away.

"Are you out of your mind?" Miles yelled at Dan. "What are you doing?"

"I'm just making sure that your father does what he's supposed to do," Dan replied.

"And what's that?"

"You'll see."


	47. Daniel Remembers

Kate, Hurley, Jack, Jin, Sawyer, Dare, and Juliet sat in Sawyer and Juliet's living room, discussing what their next plan of action would be. "All right people," Sawyer said. "The party is over. I know you all just showed up, but the rest of us have been here for the past three years." He looked at Juliet and smiled. It made Dare ache to be home. "This is our home," he continued. "The last think I want to do is leave. But we ain't got no choice."

"That guy in the closet," Dare said. "I thought he worked for you. Is there any way to convince him that it was all a misunderstanding?"

"I punched the man in the damn face. What am I supposed to say, that my fist slipped?"

"How much time do we have before some realizes he's gone?" Kate asked.

"Not enough," Sawyer answered.

"So where do we go?" Juliet asked.

"We've only got two options. We can either commandeer the sub and get the hell off this island before anyone knows we're gone, or we can head back into the jungle and start from square one."

Jin spoke up: "I'm not getting on that sub if there is a chance that my wife is still on this island."

"Yeah, me neither," Hurley chimed in. "After all that we did to get back here and now we're just going to run off again? Seems kind of wishy-washy."

"Right," Sawyer said. "That's two votes for square one. Anyone else want to-?" He stopped when a knock sounded at the front door. Jack and Kate looked at each other nervously.

Sawyer stood, holding his gun tightly. "Hold your horses," he yelled as they knocked again. "Be right there."

Dare heard Sawyer open the door. "Hey, James," came Dan's voice.

"Welcome to the meeting, Twitchy," Sawyer replied. "Good to see you again. Pound cake's in the kitchen. Help yourself to the punch."

Dan, Adonia, and Miles walked into the living room. Dare smiled at her friend and Adonia smiled back.

"I'm sorry if I was rude before," Dan said, looking from Jack to Dare. "What I came to do is of critical importance to everyone in this room. Does anyone know where I can find the hostiles?"

"Why do you need to know that?" Adonia asked.

"Because one of them is my mother. And she's the only person on this island who can get us back to where we belong."

"Your mother is an Other?" Sawyer asked, looking at Dan.

"You met her, actually. When the island was skipping, back in 1954. They were calling her Ellie."

"You guys were in 1954?" Hurley asked, sounding amazed. "Like, Fonzie times?"

"You still haven't told us why you need to find her," Dare said.

"I just need to talk to her," Dan replied.

"Thought you said we were supposed to lay low, whatever happened, happened," Adonia pointed out.

"Just tell me where they are and I'll go myself," Dan said hastily.

"I ain't telling you anything and you ain't going anywhere unless you share with us what the hell you're doing," Sawyer said, taking on the leadership role once more.

"Sawyer," Jack said, "he said he could get us back to where we belong. Whether we go on the sub or we head back into the jungle, we don't belong here."

"I belonged here just find until you came back, doc," Sawyer responded with contempt.

"I know where the hostiles are," Dare said, standing.

"Whoa, hold on a second!" Sawyer said.

"She can say what she wants to say!" Adonia snapped. She walked up to Dare and said quietly, "This is going to be dangerous no matter what we choose, but I know whatever we're looking for, it's not here. It's not in 1977." Dare nodded in agreement.

"Well, whatever her reason is," Sawyer said, "helping H.G. Wells, here, talk to his mommy ain't got nothing to do with it."

"The code for the fence is 141717," Juliet said. Everyone went silent. "You should take Daniel. It's over for us here, anyway."

Dare nodded. "Okay. Let's go."

"Great," Dan said. "Miles, can you drive us?"

Miles stuck his hand in his pocket and looked sadly at Dan. Miles tossed the keys to him.

"When you realize you made a huge mistake," Sawyer said, sounding betrayed, "we'll be back at the beach, right where we started." Jack, Kate, Dare, and Adonia left. Sawyer closed the door behind them.

"These people are not going to be happy to see us. It might be a good idea to bring some guns. There's a gun safe in the motor pool, but it's locked," Dare said as they made their way towards the motor pool.

"Good thing I'm a janitor, then," Jack said, taking the keys from his pocket.

Daniel and Adonia were lagging behind, so Dare called for them. "Just a minute," Adonia called back. She stopped and held on to Dan's sleeve to stop him, too.

"Dan," Adonia said. "I, um… I need to tell you why I came back."

"Wasn't it to save Sawyer, Juliet-?"

"No," she cut in. "It wasn't, Dan. I came back for you."

"For me...? I'm flattered," he said with a half-laugh, "but I mean, I just met you back on the island."

"No, that wasn't the first time," she said. "This might be hard to believe Daniel, but I've known you for a very, very long time."

He looked confused. "What are you saying?"

Adonia took a deep breath to keep herself from crying. "We… we went to school together. Ten years. I've known you for ten years."

"I'm sorry," he said. "I don't… I don't understand. How is that possible?"

"Come with me," she said. She grabbed his hand and led him back to her and Dare's house. She went inside and into her room. She flipped open her suitcase – she hadn't taken the time yet to unpack everything – and brought out a large book.

"What's that? A yearbook?" Dan asked.

Adonia flipped through the yearbook and stopped at the senior pictures section. She pointed out Dan. "That's you," she said. "Class of 1990. And this," she flipped back a couple pages, "is me. Class of 1993. We went to school together."

"For a year," he said.

"You don't get it, do you?" Adonia asked, starting to get frustrated. She flipped the page again. It was a collage of pictures. "Here." She handed him the book.

"What am I looking at?" he asked.

"Just look."

He stared down until finally his eyes fell upon the picture she'd been waiting to show him. A much younger, clean-shaven Dan was smiling. On his back was Adonia, smiling brilliantly over his shoulder with her arms around his neck.

"That's me," he said. "And you." He looked up at Adonia.

She nodded. He looked back down at the picture and smoothed the page out with his hand. "Adonia," he said. He stared at her and a smile spread across his face. "Addie. Addie, my God." He hugged her and she hugged him back. They both laughed, Adonia crying tears of joy now. "I forgot," he said into her ear as they embraced. "I'm so sorry I forgot. I love you. I'm sorry."


	48. Battle At the Motor Pool

Dare pulled a gun out of the gun safe at the motor pool and handed it to Jack. She pulled out two more – a pistol and a rifle. She kept the pistol for herself and handed the rifle to Kate. Dan and Adonia walked up. Dare saw that Adonia looked happier than she had been in a very long time. She gave Adonia a curious look, but didn't ask as a van pulled up behind them. Dare quickly handed a gun to Dan who looked concerned. "That's the last one," Dare said to Adonia.

"I really don't want one," Adonia replied. Dare could see she was telling the truth as she stared nervously at the pistol now concealed behind Dare's back.

Radzinsky and two other men got out of the van. "What's going on here?" Radzinsky asked, coming towards the group. He noticed Dan. "Aren't you one of the physicists off the sub?"

"Yeah," Dan replied. "We were just making sure the -."

"You're supposed to be out at the Swan site," Radzinsky cut in.

"There was an accident at the Orchid Station," Dare answered, stepping forward. "Dr. Chang asked us to help." Dan nodded in agreement, and stepped forward to add something, but in doing so, he revealed his gun.

"He has a gun!" Radzinsky yelled. His two men drew their weapons and Dare, Kate, and Jack took out their own.

"I just left Dr. Chang," Radzinsky said. "He's at home with his wife and baby. You're lying. Now drop the guns and get down on the ground!"

"Listen to me," Dan said desperately. "You really do not understand what's happening, here. You have no idea. We have no time. We have to leave, all right? So, we're just going to leave." He started to walk towards the jeep. A shot rang out and Dan fell. Adonia stifled a scream and ran to him as guns started firing from both sides.

Dan sat up and Adonia breathed, relieved that he was okay. She helped him up. Adonia looked at the jeep and thought that they might be able to make it. Jack and Dare covered them as Adonia and Dan raced towards the car. Jack shot a fuel tank and it exploded. He, Dare, and Kate ran to the jeep and hopped in. Their window was blown out, but they drove away.

"Sound the alarm!" they heard Radzinsky yell.


	49. Captured

They drove up to the pylons and everyone got out of the jeep. "You remember the code?" Jack asked Dare. She nodded in reply and went to the fence. Jack walked over to Dan and looked at his neck where he'd been shot. It was bleeding. "It's just a graze," Jack said. He took out some medicine from his bag and put it on the wound.

"I guess I'm lucky," Dan said.

"What does luck have to do with it?" Adonia asked. She had passed the point of feeling relieved and now she just felt anger towards the man who had almost killed Dan. "I thought you said whatever happened, happened."

"You've got to understand," Dan replied, looking at her. Jack left them, deciding to check on Dare and Kate who were searching through the backpacks they took with them. "This is our present," Dan continued. "When we met did I have a scar on my neck?" Adonia shook her head. "No, because I hadn't been shot yet. We can't be so naïve as to think nothing can happen to us. Anyone of us can die, Addie." He placed his hands on her face, looking concerned. "You don't have to come with us. If you go back you can still reach Sawyer and Juliet before they leave. You'll be safer there."

"I'm not going anywhere," Adonia said, determined. "And I'm definitely not going back to them. Not now that I have you back."

He smiled at her.

Dare looked over at Dan and Adonia. Curiosity was bubbling out of her – since when did Dan and Adonia have a thing? Had she missed that? Was it possible to miss something that was so obvious now? She shook her head. Jack laughed a little. "I don't get it either," he said. "She never mentioned him once when we were together." Dare looked at Jack and he seemed pained by the memory, so she didn't say anything.

"Is everyone ready?" Kate asked, breaking the silence. Dan and Adonia walked over and went through the fence first together. Kate followed, but Dare held on to Jack's arm, telling him to wait a moment.

"Do you think he knows what he's doing?" Dare asked, indicating Dan.

"I sure hope so. There's no turning back now," Jack replied.

In the jungle, Kate, Jack, Dare, Adonia, and Daniel continued on their way to the hostiles. They took a break by a small stream and refilled their water bottles. "You need a gun to talk to your mother, Dan?" Dare asked. Dan was still holding on to the pistol in his left hand.

"You don't know my mother."

"You ready to tell me why she was wrong, and why we don't belong here?"

"In about four hours," Dan explained, "the Dharma folks at the Swan site are going to drill into the ground and accidentally tap into a massive pocket of energy. The result of the release of this energy would be catastrophic. So, in order to contain it, they're going to have to cement the entire area in, like Chernobyl. And this containment, the place they build over it, I believe you called it the hatch. The Swan hatch.

"Because of this one little accident, these people are going to spend the next 20 years keeping that energy at bay by pressing a button. A button that your friend Desmond will fail to push, and that will cause your plane, Oceanic 815 to crash on this island. And because your plane crashed, a freighter will be sent to this island. A freighter that I was on and Frank was on and so forth. This entire chain of events is going to start happening this afternoon. But, we can change that. I've studied relativistic physics my entire life. One thing emerged over and over. Can't change the past, can't do it. Whatever happened, happened. But then, I finally realized, I've been spending so much time on the constants that I forgot about the variables. Do you know what the variables in these equations are, Dare?"

"No," she replied quietly.

"Us. We're the variables. People. We think, we reason, we make choices. We have free will. We can change our destiny. I think I can negate that energy under the Swan. I think I can destroy it. If I can, then that hatch will never be built and your plane will land just like it's supposed to in Los Angeles."

"And just how, exactly, do you plan on destroying this energy?" Kate asked.

"I'm going to detonate a hydrogen bomb," he replied.

Everyone stared at him in disbelief.

"We might die," Dare told Jack as they continued their trek through the jungle. "He's talking about erasing everything that's ever happened to us. It's insane."

"We disappeared off a plan in midair and ended up in 1977. I'm getting kind of used to insane." Jack smiled at Dare, but she was beginning to feel more nervous by the second.

"You know, I should've seen that coming. The whole Dan – Adonia thing," Dare said. Jack turned around and saw that Daniel, Adonia, and Kate were twenty yards behind, talking about something they couldn't hear.

"Doubtful," Jack said. "I don't think any of us saw that coming."

"You don't understand. It's my job to know about people to be able to read them."

"Some people are unreadable," he replied thoughtfully.

"Very few people," she said, shaking her head. "When I was first learning how to work as a PI, I took up an apprenticeship with a man by the name of Cal Lightman. Have you heard of him?"

Jack shook his head.

"Well, he's a genius psychologist with an expertise in body language, predominantly microexpressions."

"Microexpressions?" Jack inquired.

"They're like really small, involuntary facial expressions. They usually occur in high-stakes situations, where people have something to lose or gain. But, unlike regular facial expressions, it's difficult to fake microexpressions. They can occur as fast as 1/25 of a second, so you either have to be really talented or really trained to catch them. Dr. Lightman was exactly that: talented and trained. He could catch a lie a mile away."

"Did you just say 'Dr. Lightman'?" Dan asked. Dare hadn't realized, but Kate, Dan, and Adonia had rejoined them.

"Yeah," Dare said. "I studied under him for a couple years."

"You're kidding!" Dan exclaimed happily.

"Did you know him?" Dare asked.

"He went to Oxford," Dan explained. "So, he came back to do a seminar when I was a student. Everyone thought it was total rubbish what he was doing – no one really believed a lie could be detected with just the naked eye. So, he did a demonstration. He asked a student to come up, look at a picture, and they could either lie or tell the truth about what they were seeing. So, the student went up and told the truth about both pictures – and Dr. Lightman was wrong. He had said the kid was lying both times when he wasn't!"

"So he was a fraud?" Kate asked.

"On the contrary – apparently the student he had demonstrated with was a psychopathic killer and Dr. Lightman recognized it. He ended up saving a girl from being murdered."

"He told me about that," Dare said. "I didn't believe him – I thought he was just being a pompous jerk like always." She laughed. "God, I miss him. He was like a father to me, you know?"

"So, you learned how to read microexpressions?" Jack asked Dare.

She nodded. "Though, I'm nowhere near as talented as Dr. Lightman. But I can still tell you if what you're telling me is true or not."

Jack stopped walking abruptly. Dare stopped, too, giving him a confused look. "What is it?" Kate asked.

"So, if you can tell if someone's lying," Jack said, "then why didn't you tell us Ben was lying the whole time?"

Dare looked guilty. "I never talked to him," she admitted. "I didn't allow myself to talk to him. I knew you guys were having trouble trying to decide whether or not he really was 'Henry Gale', but I couldn't tell anyone that I could detect lies. People sort of… freak out when you tell them that. I'd rather not have people avoiding me, you know? And I knew that if I talked to Ben and I found out he was lying, I was going to have to tell you how I found out. I never call people out when they lie to me or to others – everyone's entitled to their own secrets."

"I should know," Adonia said, speaking up. "I knew Dare while she was working with Dr. Lightman and it was a little daunting at first, the way she could always tell if I or someone else was lying. But, after a while you get used to it. Or you learn how to lie." She smiled widely at Dare and she rolled her eyes in return.

They continued walking. "You would have been a lot more useful if we'd known about your little gift," Jack said.

"Wow," Dare said bluntly. "You really know how to charm the ladies, don't you, Jack?"

They heard talking from up ahead and Jack pulled Dare and Adonia back. Daniel kept walking. "Wish me luck," he said. Adonia tried to go after him, but Jack held her back. It was the Others' camp. "Let him go," Jack said quietly.

Dare and Adonia scrambled around to the side and ducked behind some bushes. Between the branches they could see Dan talking to an Other who had made a fire a little farther away from the center of the camp. Dan was holding a gun at him. There were some words exchanged and then Richard walked up to them.

Dare gasped. He hadn't gotten younger since the last time she saw him! How was that possible? He was supposed to be thirty years younger. Dare snapped her attention back as Dan held his gun at Richard and demanded something – presumably to see Eloise.

A shot rang out and Dan fell back, stumbling and falling on his back. Dare held on to Adonia tightly as she tried to run to him.

"Why did you do that?" they heard Richard yell as a blond woman lowered her gun.

"Eloise," Dare realized. "She shot her own son. She knew she was going to shoot him…"

"Let me _go_!" Adonia demanded. She wrenched out of Dare's grip and raced down the little hill to Daniel. The Others who had gathered around Richard, Daniel, and Eloise looked even more surprised to see Adonia come sprinting out of the jungle. Dare cursed under her breath. She turned to talk to Jack and Kate, but as she did so, two men rode up on horseback. One of them shoved the butt of his rifle at Jack and he fell.

The other man dismounted and pointed the gun at Kate and Dare who were now standing next to each other. "Don't move!" he demanded.

The first man also got off his horse and walked over to Jack who was coming to. Dare thought he looked incredibly familiar. "And just who the bloody hell might you be?" the man asked. Dare gasped. She'd know that voice anywhere, even after thirty years.

"Charles Widmore," Dare said in disbelief.

"What was that?" Charles asked, turning to her. "How do you know my name?"

Dare shut up, knowing better than to talk. He studied her for a moment before turning his attention back to Jack. He hoisted Jack up and took him, Kate, and Dare to the Others' camp.

Dare craned her neck, trying to see between the group of people now fixated around what could only be Adonia and Dan. Finally, Eloise moved out of the way and Dare saw Adonia holding on to Dan's arm. Dare sighed loudly in relief when she saw Dan sit up looking disoriented, but unhurt. Then, she realized Adonia wasn't holding on to his arm for no reason – he'd been shot and she was keeping pressure on it.

"What happened?" Charles asked.

"This man walked into camp and put a gun to my head," Richard explained. "Eloise reacted. Where did you find them?"

"Crouched in the bushes like rats," Charles replied with contempt.

"Did you four come here with him?" Eloise asked, pointing at Dan.

"Yes," Jack answered.

Dare shot him a look. What an idiot.

"Put them in my tent. All of them," Eloise said.

They were all shoved into a tiny tent and their hands were tied behind their backs. Dare struggled in her ropes, but to no avail. Dan was bleeding out badly and was beginning to look pale.

"He's going to faint soon," Jack told the man who put them into the tent. "I'm a doctor. I can help him. If you just untie me, I can dress it and then you can tie me back up." The man hit Jack across the head, making him fall.

"Shut up!" the man yelled.

"Please, just let him -." Dan started to say, but the man hit him with his rifle, too. Dan collapsed and Adonia cried out.

"Don't talk," the man said. "Understand?" He left the tent.

"Are you okay?" Dare asked Jack as he sat back up.

He spit out blood. "Yeah," he said. "Dan?"

Adonia looked over and said, "He's still breathing…"

"He'll be fine," Jack promised.

"Before we were caught," Kate said to Jack, "you said that we needed to put things back the way they were supposed to be. What did you mean by that?"

"If we can do what Faraday said, our plane never crashes. Flight 815 lands in Los Angeles. And everyone we lost since we got here... they'd all be alive."

"And what about us? We just go on living our life because we've never met?"

"All the misery we've been through, we'd just wipe it clean. Never happened."

"It was not all misery!" Dare exclaimed.

"Enough of it was," Jack replied with a sad look.

Eloise walked in, carrying the journal that Dan had dropped. "What did he need the bomb for?" Eloise asked. "I need you to tell me why he needed the bomb."

"I don't think you'd believe me if I did," Jack said.

She squatted down in front of Jack. "When I was seventeen years old, I took a young man to the bomb. He proceeded to tell me that if we buried it underground, things would work out spendidly. When I asked him how he could be so sure, he said that he was from the future. And then he disappeared right in front of my bloody eyes. Ten minutes ago, I shot that man. Explain to me, and you have my word, I will believe you." She showed Jack the journal and said, "How is this my handwriting if I don't remember writing it?"

Jack looked at it and then back up at Eloise. "Because you haven't written it yet. I know this is hard to understand, but what you just did, it was an accident and I think there is a way for you to take it all back."

"What?" she asked in disbelief. She turned to look at Dan, who was still out cold.

"He's your son," Adonia said softly. Eloise looked shocked, to say the least.

"He came back here," Jack said, "because he had figured out a way to change things. He doesn't have to be hurt. If we do what's written in that journal, none of this will have happened."

She turned to Adonia. "Does he know what he's talking about?"

"He thinks he does," she replied.

"All right, then," Eloise said. "I'll take you to the bomb. Just one small issue, however. We secured it over twenty years ago underground. But since that time, it appears that someone has built an entire village over it."

"The Dharma Initiative?" Dare asked, incredulous.

Eloise nodded. "However, it appears that you have been yourselves off as members, so I suppose coming and going will be relatively simple."

"It might be a little more complicated than that," Dare said, exchanging a look with Adonia.


	50. Take Us There

Richard came into the tent and untied everyone. Dare rubbed her wrists that were now raw and red. Adonia's looked even worse and Dare felt that pang of guilt that somehow it was her fault. They got Dan conscious again and Jack looked at his arm. He dressed it. With all the blood cleaned off, Dan gained the color in his face again.

They got out of the tent and Adonia stretched gratefully. But Dare's thoughts were elsewhere – namely on one Charles Widmore who was currently talking to Eloise. They were bickering about something then he touched her stomach. Dare looked over at Dan, but he was talking to Adonia and not looking at Dare.

Dare walked over to Richard and said, "That's Charles Widmore."

Richard looked mildly surprised that she knew who it was, though at this point he should have been prepared for anything. He saw that Dare was studying Widmore's and Eloise's strange fight. "He and Eloise are… let's just say love can be complicated," Richard said with a small smile.

Dare's suspicions were confirmed. There was no doubt that Charles Widmore was Dan's father...

Eloise came towards the group now and said authoritatively, "All right, let's move out."


	51. The Tunnels

Dare, Adonia, Dan, Eloise, Kate, Jack, Richard, and Erik (he was the other man who had been with Charles Widmore when Jack, Kate, and Dare were taken hostage) reached a creek and stopped.

"You know how to swim?" Eloise asked to no one in particular.

"Why don't we just go around it?" Kate asked.

"No, dear," Eloise said condescendingly, "We have to swim under the pond to get to the tunnels."

"I'm not going," Kate said.

"What?" Jack asked.

"I'm going to go back and find everyone else. I can't go any further with you, Jack. Not this time."

Dare couldn't help but to think that maybe Kate meant more than she was saying.

"Kate, you can't go back there now," Dare said. "They know about us. They tried to kill us!"

"And what are we doing here?" She had a point – blowing up a hydrogen bomb wasn't exactly the safest thing to do. "Good-bye Jack," she added. She turned and started to walk away, but Erik trained his gun on her.

"You don't have to do that," Jack said.

"We're not in the habit of telling our secrets to strangers and then just letting them saunter off," Eloise explained.

"Look, just put the gun down," Dan said, looking nervous.

"Step away!" Erik shouted

"If she wants to leave, she can leave!" Dare snapped.

A gunshot sounded, echoing through the woods. Adonia gasped, but Kate wasn't injured. Erik fell to the ground, blood seeping out of the bullet hole in his stomach.

Sayid stepped out of the jungle, gun held up. Eloise and Richard put up their hands immediately. Dare felt fury rise up in her – trigger happy Sayid had shot Ben and now Erik? Adonia grabbed her hand and Dare looked at her friend, a little surprised. Adonia shook her head slightly, begging Dare not to do or say anything rash.

A little later, Dare, Dan, Jack, Kate, Sayid, and Adonia gathered in a group to talk while Eloise and Richard sat a ways off.

"So you're telling me you're going to erase the last three years of our lives?" Sayid asked Dan.

"If things go according to plan, yes," Dan replied with a determined air.

"We can change things, Sayid," Jack said.

"I don't know if you're aware of this," Sayid said, "but I've already changed things. I killed Benjamin Linus and we're all still here."

"That's because you didn't kill him," Dare replied, malice and contempt dripping from every word.

"Why did you do that?" Sayid asked, obviously furious.

"Why did I do that? Since when did shooting kids become okay?" Dare was almost bursting with the truth, but she knew that announcing that Ben was her father now wasn't a good idea. There was already enough drama to deal with. Besides, if Dan's plan worked, it might not even matter anymore.

"The five of us disappeared off that plane and ended up here, now, because this is our chance to change things," Jack said.

"And if you're wrong, then everyone on this island dies. Do you understand that?" Kate asked, standing up.

"I'm not wrong, Kate. This is it. This is why we're here. This is our destiny."

Dare saw Adonia swallow. She knew how hard this was for her friend – Jack was increasingly sounding like John Locke.

"Do you know who you sound like?" Kate asked, mirroring Dare's thought. "Because he was crazy too, Jack. You said so yourself."

"Well, maybe I was wrong."

"No, you were right," Kate said. "I'm going back to find the rest of our people because if I can't stop you, maybe they can." She marched off into the jungle.

Richard dove into the water first. Jack shook Sayid's hand while Dare scowled in the background.

"He meant well," Adonia said to Dare.

"I don't really care what he meant," Dare snapped. She sighed. "I'm sorry. It just pisses me off how stoic he is about killing a little kid, no matter who Ben grows up to be. If Dan's right, which he normally is, then Ben can change, too. And my guess is shooting him didn't help."

Dan smiled at the compliment. "Everything's going to get better after we get that bomb to the Orchid," Dan said. He grabbed Adonia's hand and Dare shook her head.

"Don't think I've forgotten about that," Dare said, indicating their intertwined hands. "We need to talk, Adonia, my dear."

Adonia looked guilty, but laughed.

Eloise walked over to them and said, "Ready to dive in? There's an opening in the bottom of the rocks at the far side."

Dare went first, taking a deep breath and diving in head first. It was extremely deep, but the water was clear and she found the tunnel with no trouble. It made her feel claustrophobic and she was extremely grateful to reach the surface. She lifted herself up onto a rock floor. They were in a cave and Richard was holding a torch. Dare wrung her clothes, getting some of the extra water out.

"That was a lot farther than I thought it was," Dare noted.

Jack surfaced and climbed out. Richard handed him a second torch.

"Where are we?" Dare asked.

"The tunnels," Richard replied.

Adonia and Dan soon showed up and joined them.

"So… how are we going to get a bomb out of here?" Adonia asked, wringing her long, brown hair out.

"The same way we brought it in," Richard answered.

"I assume you don't mean through the pool," Adonia said. It was cooler in the tunnels and Dare could see that Adonia was shivering beneath her soaking clothes. Dan put his arm around her shoulders and she smiled gratefully.

"It's a twelve-foot long, forty thousand pound hydrogen bomb," Richard said. "No, not through the pool."

Eloise joined them, and to everyone's surprise, so did Sayid.

Jack went to the opening and helped Sayid out of the water. "I didn't think you'd come."

Dare clenched her fists at her side. She might not make it through the night without taking a swing at Sayid…

"Well, if this works, you might just save us all. And if it doesn't, well at least you'll put us out of our misery," Sayid said.

"All right," Eloise said, taking up a third torch. "Let's get started."


	52. Jughead

As they traversed the tunnels, Dare fell back to eavesdrop on Sayid and Jack's whispered conversation.

"I'm sure it's occurred to you that this woman's motivation in helping us detonate the hydrogen bomb is only to annihilate the Dharma Initiative," Sayid was saying.

"Yes, but I still trust her," Jack replied.

"Why?"

"Because thirty years from now, she's the one that's going to tell us how to get back to the island."

"And that makes you trust her?"

Jack didn't respond, so Dare could only guess that he had nodded in reply.

They came to a room and Eloise uncovered the huge bomb.

"Well, now what?" Eloise asked.


	53. Flashback Encounters of the Jacob Kind

_Adonia Sterling walked down the hallway of Las Angeles Senior High, her messenger bag full of textbooks and notebooks for her next three classes before the end of the day. She talked animatedly to a blond girl with bright, blue eyes. She had only been going to the high school for a week, but Adonia's genial personality made it easy for her to find friends. _

_Her blond friend waved good-bye as she turned down a hallway – Adonia kept going straight. Her choir class was so far away from her fourth period class, so she often found herself speed-walking to make it in time. This was one such occasion. _

_As her pace quickened, her attention was lost and she ran into someone. He apologized profusely as her messenger bag fell, spewing textbooks and papers everywhere. The bell rang. She was late. _

_She cursed under breath and started shoving books into her bag. The person she ran into bent down, grabbed the last book, and handed it to her. They both stood and Adonia gasped. It was a teacher. A young teacher. Either that, or a very old student. He had sandy blond hair and blue eyes and a wonderfully sweet smile._

"_I'm so sorry," Adonia said. "I didn't realize… I'm sorry."_

"_It was my fault," the man apologized. He smiled again, and immediately Adonia felt at ease. _

"_I'm sorry," Adonia said, finding herself curious. "I'm on the SGA and I know most of the teachers here… but I've never seen you around."_

"_I'm a substitute," he explained. "Mr. Anderson." _

"_Oh." She adjusted the strap on her messenger bag. "Well, I'd better get going. I'm already late…"_

"_Let me write you a note," Mr. Anderson said. _

_Adonia smiled gratefully and handed him a notebook and pen. He scribbled down a few words and then handed it back. _

"_Thank you so much, Mr. Anderson."_

"_My pleasure, Adonia." He held out his hand and she shook it. _

_It wasn't until after she was seated in the choir room, listening to her small group of friends gossip that she realized she had never told Mr. Anderson her name._


	54. A History Lesson

Jack was circling the bomb like a hungry vulture while Dan and Sayid conversed over Dan's journal. Occasionally they would point something out on the bomb, twist a wire, or tap on the metal, but otherwise it was uneventful.

"So," Dare said, walking over to Adonia who had found a comfy-ish spot on the cave floor and was sitting with her legs stretched out in front of her. "Now's a good a time as any, I think."

"Time for what?" Adonia asked.

Dare sat next to her and they watched for a couple seconds as Dan flipped frantically through the journal, probably looking for a specific equation or drawing.

"Time to tell me what the hell happened," Dare answered.

Adonia sighed. "You know, he wasn't always this… science-y," she said.

"Is this relevant?" Dare asked, afraid she wasn't going to get a straight answer.

"It is."

"You have to be studying physics all your life to be like him, I thought," Dare said, nodding at Dan.

"And for most of his life, he did. I met him when I was a freshman at LA Senior High. He was a senior. We were best friends, and I mean that. Like you and me, except… maybe more. I was a little too young to realize it, but those first four years I knew him were the best years of my life."

"Why didn't you ever mention him, then?" Dare asked. "If you really liked each other so much, why did you not talk about him in college when I met you?"

Adonia looked down at her hands and said, "It was too hard to talk about him."

"What happened?"

"He went to Oxford right after graduation. He'd already been studying physics. Not because he had a passion for it – maybe he did at one point, but it wasn't what he really enjoyed. Regardless, he certainly had a gift. His mother pressured him so much, he felt like he didn't have a choice."

Dare looked up at Eloise, who was on the other side of the cave with Richard. They were talking quietly, both eyeing the bomb with wariness.

"So what was he passionate about?" Dare asked.

"Music," Adonia answered immediately. "That's how we met. He is one of the best pianists I know, and I'm not just saying that because it's Dan. I mean it. He was absolutely incredible. We kept in touch when he went to Oxford, of course. In fact, not much had changed, other than missing him every moment of the day. He would have visited, but his mother had him trapped over in England. She probably knew how I liked Dan, she knew I would only be a distraction.

"Then, something went wrong. He was doing an ongoing experiment… Everyone at Oxford thought he was a nut because these equations and experiments and theories he would create seemed incredibly impossible. But, he was always right, wasn't he? But, no one wanted to risk being experimented on by the crazy physicist. He had a lab partner and together they did experiments on rats and mice and themselves. The radiation was too much – he lost his memory. Almost everything was wiped clean. His mother brought him to L.A. She thought maybe I could help."

"When was this?" Dare asked.

"Remember when I told you my aunt died? She didn't die. I just needed an excuse to be depressed once in a while. It worked, too, since you hadn't yet studied under Dr. Lightman. I tried everything I could to reach Dan. Every time I would go to his house, I would hope and pray that he would remember me. But he never did. It was like he was meeting me for the first time."

"But he remembered Eloise?" Dare asked.

"I assume because he knew her since he was born, she was permanently etched in his mind. But it didn't matter how hard I tried to get Dan to remember me. He never knew. And it hurt. It tore me apart every time he would look at me and not know. Eloise was supportive. She knew I meant well, but she told me it was a lost cause. She saw how I was falling apart and told me that it would be best if I just let him be. So I stopped visiting."

"And then he came to the island," Dare guessed. "How in _hell_ did I not notice? You were with him a _lot_ and I never suspected a thing!"

"It wasn't hard pretending I didn't know him when he genuinely believed he didn't know me. But I knew something was different about him. The island did something. It healed him. Or it at least helped. But I never believed he would get his memories back, so I never tried. I knew that if I did try one last time and it didn't work, I'd lose hope forever. And if it did work, if he somehow remembered, it would be just as bad. We were going to be rescued and I feared that if he left the island, he would relapse. And if he remembered, he would come with me when we were rescued. So, I left without telling him the truth. I thought he would be happier here. But then Jacob came to me."

"He _what_?"

"I know… I'm sorry I didn't tell you this, Dare. But it's like when you told me you thought Brendon's death was your fault – it was too hard to talk about. I wasn't ready. And Jacob's visit was part of that. He told me that Dan would be okay. He told me he would remember if I wanted him to. He said I could rescue him and if I didn't, he would die on this island."

"That's why you came back, then," Dare said. "So you could save Daniel."

Adonia nodded. "I didn't think it would work. Honestly, I didn't. So, I didn't want to get my hopes up, let alone yours. But, it did. It worked!"

"You've never been happier," Dare noted with a small smile. "I'm happy for you."

Dare and Adonia both stood, boredom getting the best of them, and went over to Dan and Sayid.

"Is there anything in there about how we're supposed to move a ten ton bomb across the island?" Adonia asked, peering over Dan's shoulder at the notebook.

"Actually, it's twenty tons," Sayid said. "Fortunately, we don't have to take the bomb in its entirety."

"What?" Dare asked, more curious now.

"These are detailed instructions on how to remove the plutonium core and how to detonate it," Dan explained, pointing to a bunch of complicated drawings and scribbles.

"You told me that we needed to wipe out some kind of pocket of energy," Jack said, joining them. "Is only part of the bomb going to be able to do that?"

"The core itself is a thermonuclear weapon," Sayid explained. "It will be more than enough." He took out a piece of the bomb and held it gingerly in his hands.

"Hold on," Richard said, coming over. Eloise followed behind him. "We sealed that thing up twenty years ago and put it underground because it was emitting radiation. And now you're going to open it up? Does this sound like a good idea to you, Eloise?"

"Richard," she said warningly.

"You're pregnant," he stated bluntly.

Dan made a sound in the back of his throat, somewhere between a cough and a laugh.

"Which is exactly why I have to help them see this through," Eloise said, not looking at Dan. "Once the core is removed, then what?"

"Then, we have approximately two hours to take it to the Swan site," Sayid said.

Dan's look of complete shock faded a little as he explained, "Two hours is just a guess, but it's an educated one."

"Well then," Dare said, "we better get moving."

"Please go back, Eloise," Richard said, his eyes pleading.

She sighed and after a moment of thought, nodded. "All right," she said. She turned to the group and said, "I wish you all the best of luck." With one last look at Dan, she jumped back into the pool of water and disappeared.

Dan looked as if he had half a mind to jump after her, but Adonia's hand in his kept him grounded for the time being.


	55. Flashback Another Encounter

_Dare stretched and yawned loudly. She'd been sitting in front of the computer for too long. She stood up and walked into the kitchen of her and Brendon's two bedroom apartment. It was only eight o'clock, but she was already sleepy._

_She gasped. She had completely forgotten she was supposed to be meeting Brendon for dinner! She grabbed her keys off the counter and a jacket from a hook on the wall and ran out. She locked the front door and skidded down the steps and out onto the sidewalk, almost running into someone._

"_Oh geez, I'm sorry," she said as the man took a step back in surprise._

_It had been dark for a couple hours – it was winter – so it was hard to make out his face, but the man laughed and said, "It's okay. Hey… You're Genavieve Belacqua, aren't you?" _

_She was anxious to be going, but Dare was curious. "Yes. I'm sorry, do I know you?"_

"_Oh, I've known you for quite some time," the man replied._

_Coming from anyone else, it may have sounded creepy, but this man seemed polite enough._

"_I'm sorry… I don't know you," Dare said. She noticed the reason it was so dark was because the streetlight they were standing under had gone out. "Did you want something?"_

"_Only to warn you," the man said. "I know you work for Charles Widmore and he is a very, very dangerous man. I also know that you haven't told your husband that you're still working for him. That was unwise and I'm afraid I'm going to have to tell him if you don't, Genavieve."_

"_Who the hell are you?" Dare asked, becoming frantic. "Just leave me alone!" She turned on her heel and ran straight back into her apartment building, her date with Brendon immediately forgotten._

_An hour later, the phone rang._

"_Hello?" Dare answered._

"_Mrs. Belacqua?"_

"_Yes."_

"_This is Officer Collins of the LAPD. I'm afraid I have some bad news…"_


	56. Jack's Departure

Jack took his backpack off and asked, "Is this big enough?" Dan nodded.

Sayid worked to take apart the bomb. Finally, his meticulous work produced the very core of the bomb. It wasn't very big. Sayid wrapped it in a shirt and put it in Jack's bag.

"Time is short," Sayid said. "Let's go."

Richard led them into another room. He looked around and then tapped on a wall. "Stand back," he warned. Dare noticed he was holding a mallet. He smashed in the wall. They saw stairs and Jack said, "It's one of the Dharma houses. I'll go first."

"I'm not going any further," Richard said. "I'm sorry, but this is not my battle. You asked me to help you, and now I have." He turned and left without another word.

"After you," Sayid said to Jack. Dare followed after Sayid, then Dan and Adonia. They went up the stairs and did, indeed, find themselves in a Dharma house.

An alarm was sounding outside and there was an announcement over the loudspeaker: "All residents, we are in a code black. Report with your weapons to your security assignments immediately."

Jack looked out the window as people hurried about.

The announcement continued: "If you come into contact with the Hostiles, you are authorized to use deadly force."

"How the hell are we going to get out of here?" Adonia asked.

"We hide in plain sight," Dare said. She pointed to a closet of Dharma jumpsuits.

After getting changed, they left the house, each sporting a new jumpsuit. They walked through the people, everyone too frantic to notice them. Dare saw Phil giving out instructions to a group. They walked toward the tree line.

"Hey! Hey!" Dare whipped around and saw Roger Linus holding a gun at them – no, it was pointed at Sayid. "You're the son of a bitch that shot my kid!"

"Don't fire that weapon!" Sayid warned. "I'm carrying a nuclear device."

Roger fired. Sayid fell and Jack took a shot at Roger. Suddenly, a full-fledged battle broke out with shots being taken from both sides. Dare, Adonia, and Dan took refuge behind the corner of a Dharma house. Jack grabbed Sayid and joined them. He reloaded his gun.

Suddenly, a Dharma bus pulled up, driven by none other than Hurley. Dare laughed, relieved to see him. Jin opened the side door and Jack helped him get Sayid in. The rest piled in and they drove off.

Hurley sped down a dirt path as Jin removed Sayid's backpack with the bomb in it.

"Is that a bomb?" Miles asked, taking the bag from Jin.

"Try not to move," Jack said to Sayid. "I need to stop the bleeding." Sayid had been shot in the abdomen and it wasn't looking good.

"What's going on back there?" Hurley yelled from the driver's seat. "Is Sayid okay?"

Dare made more room in the back by taking the front seat with Hurley. "Just drive, Hurley. He's going to be fine." She gave him a reassuring smile.

"Can I at least know where we're going?" Hurley asked.

"Swan site," Jack replied.

"Why do you want to go there? Sayid's shot -."

"Hurley!" Jack yelled. "If you want to save Sayid, take us to the Swan."

"Swan it is," Hurley muttered.

"What's at the swan?" Jin asked.

"I think I found a way to get you back to your wife," Jack said with smile. "How much longer?" he asked Hurley.

"We're about five minutes away," Hurley answered.

"You can't stop the bleeding," Sayid said. Adonia looked concerned.

"I need fresh dressings," Jack said, ignoring Sayid. Jin handed him some.

"Dan," Miles said. "So, this bomb is supposed to, what, blow us back in time?"

"Not back in time," Dan replied.

"Right, because that would be ridiculous," Miles said sarcastically.

"We need to modify the bomb," Dan said. "It needs to detonate on impact."

"I can do that," Sayid said, wincing as Jack put pressure on his stomach.

"Jack, we need to be there at the moment of the incident or all of this will be for nothing," Dan said earnestly.

The bus rolled to a stop and Adonia asked, "Why the hell are we stopping?"

"That's why," Hurley said. Everyone looked out the front window to see Kate, Juliet, and Sawyer standing in the road.

Jack got out of the bus and said, "What's going on, Kate?"

The rest of the conversation was inaudible. Dare turned around and asked, "How's Sayid?"

Adonia shook her head. Dare turned back around and cried out in anger. Jack and Sawyer were going into the woods! "Dammit, we need to go!" Dare said.

"They need five minutes," Juliet said, coming to Hurley's window.

Dare hesitated. "Fine. But then we are going with or without you guys." She got out of the bus and around to the back where Sayid was. He was already tinkering with the bomb, making it so it would explode on impact. "Are you feeling okay?" Dare asked Sayid.

He looked up at her. "I was just shot."

"Right…"

Adonia jumped out of the bus and joined Dare's side along with Dan. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?" she asked Sayid.

He didn't reply. Juliet also joined them, but she kept looking out at the woods nervously

"Why don't you go check on them?" Adonia asked.

Juliet nodded and headed off into the woods.

"Don't worry, dude," Hurley said, coming around to the back. He handed Sayid water. "Everything will be fine when Jack changes the future, or the past. One of those."

Another minute later, Jack and Kate returned and his lip was bleeding – apparently convincing them to set off a bomb took a lot of work. Juliet and Sawyer were nowhere to be found.

"Dude, what happened to your face?" Hurley asked.

"Nothing," Jack said. "We were just up on a ridge where we could look down on the Swan site. Something just happened down there. They hit something. It's time for me to go."

"It's all set to go," Sayid said, handing Jack the bomb. "Remember, be careful. It's rigged to explode on impact."

"You must get the bomb as close as you can to the source of electromagnets," Dan said.

"You're not going?" Adonia asked, looking both shocked and pleased.

"I think Jack wants to do this one," he said.

"Sayid," Jack said, "this is going to work and it'll save you."

"Nothing will save me," he replied darkly.

Jack left.


	57. Live Together, Die Alone

Jin put new gauze on Sayid's wound; he was still losing a lot of blood. The rest stood around in tense silence. Any second Jack might set off the bomb and who knew what would happen? Would they be dead or alive? Soon, Sawyer and Juliet came out of the jungle. Sawyer looked beat up, too.

"Can I ask you a question, LaFleur?" Miles asked after Sawyer joined them.

"There ain't no more LaFleur, Enis. Go ahead, shoot," Sawyer said.

"Has it occurred to any of you that your buddy's actually going to cause the thing that he's trying to prevent? Perhaps that little nuke _is_ the incident. So maybe the best thing to do is nothing?"

Dare and Adonia exchanged a frightened look and Dan frowned. Miles looked around and said, "I'm glad you all thought this through."

Then, they heard a car a ways off. They went to the edge of the jungle and saw that they were on top of a hill. Looking down was a vast expanse of green grass with a road winding through it. On that road was a blue jeep with men and guns.

"It's Phil," Jin said. "He's going to the Swan site!"

"If they see Jack, they're going to kill him!" Dare exclaimed.

Sawyer turned to Juliet. "What do you think, blondie?" he asked.

"Live together, die alone," she replied.


	58. Goodbye, Juliet

They drove the bus full-pelt into the middle of the cross fire. "Guess they saw Jack," Adonia said. Juliet, Kate, Sawyer, and Miles began shooting out the windows and the open door. Dare took her pistol and cocked it as Juliet, Sawyer, and Miles hopped out of the now stopped bus.

"Wish me luck," Dare said to Adonia with a smile.

"You think I'm letting you go out there alone?" Adonia asked. She picked up a rifle that was underneath the seat in the back.

"Hold it," Dan said, grabbing Adonia's arm as she tried to leave.

Gunfire was ricocheting off the bus loudly. "Dan, don't. I have to do this," Adonia said with a grim look. She cocked her gun and followed Dare out into the open.

The girls quickly took cover behind a water tank, covering Jack from his left as he made his way closer to the center where the hole was. Dan soon joined them reluctantly. Sawyer was positioned directly ahead of them. They saw him sneak up behind Phil and grab him in a chokehold, gun to his head.

"Tell them to drop the guns," Sawyer said loudly.

The girls and Dan took the opportunity to get closer, taking cover behind some metal barrels with Juliet.

"Drop the guns! Drop the guns!" Phil said hysterically.

People started putting their guns down and Sawyer said, "All right, you can come out now, Doc. Hurry up and do your business." Jack walked toward the hole and Sawyer yelled for Pierre to shut off the drill.

Pierre pulled some levers and a loud sound echoed. Dare, Adonia, Dan, and Juliet all stood to watch the scene. Kate joined them.

"What's the matter?" Sawyer asked Pierre.

"It won't shut down!" Pierre exclaimed, pushing a button frantically. The drill was still sending up smoke in pillars.

"Why not?" Sawyer yelled.

"Something's pulling the drill down!"

"We hit the pocket!" Radzinsky yelled. He was on his knees, hands up in front of Sawyer. Dare looked over and saw Jack taking the bomb out of the bag. He held it over the hole, but hesitated.

"Hurry up, Doc, what're you waiting for? Drop it!" Sawyer yelled.

Adonia grabbed Dare's hand and smiled at her, tears in her eyes. "See you at home," she said softly. She let go and walked over to Dan, who was standing a little ways off.

"If this works," Adonia said, "you might not remember me again. I don't want that, Dan. I don't."

He smiled down at her. "If this works, I'll never have studied Physics, Addie. I'll be a musician or something, still writing songs about you."

Adonia laughed at the thought. "You never wrote songs about me," she said.

He grinned. "That's what you think." He lifted her chin up with his hand and kissed her. Dare looked away, partially because it seemed so personal, and partially because it made her ache to have someone there for her.

Jack dropped the bomb. The drill was white noise as everyone waited for the moment. Dare closed her eyes and held her breath. Ten long seconds later, she opened her eyes.

They were still at the Swan site.

"This don't look like LA X," Sawyer said.

Dare looked over at Adonia who seemed just as confused as she was. Suddenly, the drill started groaning and rotating faster than ever before. Everyone started backing away from the hole. Then, Jack's gun that he had left on the ledge flew down the hole, being pulled by some unseen force.

Metal tools – wrenches, hammers, screwdrivers – started flying into the hole. Soon, the whole metal tower that stood above the hole started to bend and break. Pierre tried frantically to press the stop button. His hand was caught beneath the bending metal and he screamed in pain.

"Dad!" Miles yelled, running to him.

Bigger objects were moving now. A wheelbarrow flew right past Dare's head – she ducked, barely missing it.

"Come on!" Dan yelled, pulling Adonia away from the hole. "We have to get away from here!"

Dare turned back to the hole to see a toolbox hit Jack in the head and he fell, unconscious.

"Jack!" Dare yelled, running to him. Adonia followed, despite Dan's yelling.

Jack's eyes flickered open and Dare tried to help him up. Behind her, Juliet screamed and Dare saw chains wrap around her. She was being dragged toward the hole! Dare grabbed the chains as Juliet started falling down the hole. She was only hanging onto the edge with her arms. Adonia grabbed Juliet's left arm and Kate came over and grabbed the right. But Juliet kept slipping. Both Adonia and Kate's grasps slipped and Juliet fell, just barely grabbing a metal pole to hold onto.

"Sawyer!" Dare yelled as Adonia and Kate grabbed the chains. He ran to them.

"Juliet!" he cried. He scrambled over the hole and caught her hand just as she slipped. She screamed in pain as the chains tightened around her middle. "Where do you think you're going, blondie?" he asked. Her laugh turned into agony as the chains continued to pull her down.

"Help me get those chains off!" Sawyer said.

Dare leaned into the hole as far as she dared and tried to reach Juliet's chains. It was too far.

"Hold on!" Sawyer said to Juliet.

"I can't," Juliet cried, "I can't get them off."

The metal shifted around them and Dare held on for dear life. "I can't reach!" she said.

"Sawyer!" Adonia yelled, pointing just above him. The metal was snapping in half – soon the whole thing was going to cave in.

"Don't you leave me," Sawyer cried as Juliet's hand began to slip.

"It's okay," she replied.

"Don't you leave me! You hold on!"

"I love you! I love you, James!"

"No!"

"I love you so much."

"No! No, no no!"

She let go and fell with a scream. "Juliet, no!"

"Sawyer, get off of there!" Adonia yelled. "We have to go now!"

"You have to let her go," Kate said, sounding panicked. "We have to go."

"This thing is going to collapse any second," Dare exclaimed. Dan appeared and dragged Sawyer away. Jack stumbled forward, looking disoriented. Dare went to him.

"Juliet… she fell," she said.

He looked at the hole and then back at Dare, then at Sawyer as understanding flooded his face.

"No," he said. The metal debris collapsed, everything being sucked in at a fast rate, hitting the bottom with excruciatingly loud bangs and clatters.

Dare looked over and saw Adonia and Dan – his arms wrapped around her as she cried into his chest.

Juliet was gone.


	59. Flashsideways The Plane

_Dare closed her eyes and leaned back in her seat. _

_Flight 815 headed to LA from Sydney. _

_She had hardly gotten any sleep the previous night – breaking up really was hard to do. What had started out as a celebratory trip had turned into one of the worst events in her whole life._

_Brendon was right, of course. She tried to tell herself that over and over again, but it didn't mean anything. Sure, he was going to be in Sydney for the next year recording his band's new CD, but did that really mean they had to split up? They could have made it with a little effort. Was she crazy for thinking that? Adonia didn't think so. _

_Dare was grateful to at least not be going through the ordeal alone – Adonia had accompanied her on the trip. _

"_What about that Drew guy?" Adonia asked. She was sitting on Dare's left at the window seat. _

_Dare opened her eyes and frowned at her friend. "What?"_

"_Drew. The guy that works with you at the vet. He's hot."_

_Dare snorted a laugh. "He's married."_

"_Never stopped me," Adonia muttered. She was flipping through a magazine absentmindedly. "Oh!" she exclaimed. "What about that guy that lives below you? Um…"_

"_Damien?"_

"_Yeah! He's totally in your league."_

"_Thanks for the tip, but I'm not really looking for a new guy. We only broke up yesterday," Dare pointed out. God, it was hard just saying it out loud. Somehow it made it final_

"_You've gotta get right back on the horse," Adonia said with a smile._

"_Easy for you to say. You haven't had a boyfriend in, what? Three years?"_

"_Oh, shut up. Besides, that's all going to change once I start recording next month. Guys will be screaming my name while I'm up on stage…" She seemed lost in her own fantasy. Dare rolled her eyes._

"_As long as you promise not to break up with me once you do," Dare said, a bit too seriously._

"_Hey, don't be like that," Adonia replied. "Maybe he'll come around. Give him a week and maybe that big head of his will realize he'll never have a girl quite like you ever again. And if he doesn't come to his senses, then he's a huge idiot. Which we already knew, anyway."_

"_Sure…"_

"_Just hang in there, Gen." Adonia pulled her iPod out of her bag and drifted away from reality to the sound of music._

_Dare brought out a novel, but she only stared at the page, not actually reading, lost in thought. _

"_You're friend's right, you know."_

_Dare looked over at the man next to her who had, up to this point, been silent. Dare laughed humorlessly. "Right…"_

"_I'm serious," he said. "Maybe your… boyfriend just didn't know how lucky he was." He had a strange accent… Dare guessed Scottish._

"_I'm sorry, are you married?" Dare asked, not even bothering to look at the man's hand for a ring._

_He laughed. "No, I'm not."_

"_Have a girlfriend?"_

"_No."_

"_Then, who the hell are you to give me relationship advice?"_

_He frowned, aware that he had obviously hit a nerve. "I'm sorry," he said._

"_Doesn't matter," Dare muttered. She pulled out her own iPod and turned it on loudly. She closed her eyes and when she woke up from her shallow sleep, he was gone. She looked over and saw Adonia was awake, staring out the window with a blank stare._

_They hit turbulence. Adonia grabbed Dare's hand and clenched it tightly. "Please don't crash, please don't crash, please don't crash," she kept uttering under her breath._

_The turbulence stopped and Adonia finally let go of her hand. It was sore. Dare shook her head. "You know how uncommon plane crashes are?" Dare asked. _

"_I still hate turbulence," Adonia replied. _

"_Did you, um, see where the guy next to me went?" Dare asked._

"_Yeah, the Scottish dude? He moved up there. Said he saw someone he knew or something." Adonia pointed forward. Dare peaked around the edge of the seats and saw the top of what could be the man's head, but she didn't know for sure. He was sitting a seat away from another man she had seen earlier in the terminal. Dare felt guilty. There was no way she was going to get a new boyfriend if she ended up scaring away every guy that came her way._

"_Are you okay?" Adonia asked._

_Dare nodded. "Yeah. I'll be all right."_

"_Almost home," Adonia said with a smile._

"_Oh God. I didn't even think about him."_

"_Who?" _

"_My dad. He's going to freak when I tell him about me and Brendon."_


	60. Back to the Future

Everything went white.

Dare opened her eyes. It took a while to focus and she tried to remember where she was. She was staring up at the jungle canopy… She tried to yell, but her voice was muffled. No, it wasn't her voice – her hearing had gone. Then, it rushed back to her. The bomb had gone off. She sat up and looked around. It took a moment to stand – she almost blacked out trying – but once she was on her legs, she yelled, "Hello?"

She felt a hand on her shoulder and she turned to see Adonia looking scared, but unhurt. They hugged. Adonia pointed to her ears. Dare guessed she wasn't the only one having hearing issues.

"What happened?" Adonia yelled.

Dare shook her head. She looked past Adonia and started walking at a quick pace. It couldn't be…

"What is it?" Adonia called after her.

"We're back," Dare said. Her hearing was getting better by the minute.

"Back where?" Adonia asked. She walked up behind Dare and then gasped at what she saw.

"It's the hatch," Dare said. "It's the hatch after Desmond blew it up. We're back."

"Hey!" The girls looked up to see that Miles was on the other side of the crater waving. Dare waved back. Miles and Kate joined Adonia and Dare's side. "Guess we're not in 1977 anymore, huh?" Miles said.

"Dan," Adonia said, looking to their left. She ran to Dan who was a couple yards away, on the edge of the crater. Next to him were Sawyer and Jack, both unconscious.

Adonia helped Dan up, explaining to him what happened while Dare and Kate helped Jack and Sawyer.

"Hey," Dare said to Jack. His eyes opened slowly.

"What happened?" he asked. "Where are we?"

"At the hatch," she replied.

Jack sat up and looked at the hatch. "They built it?"

"Yeah, they built it," Dare said sadly.

Jack shook his head. Suddenly, a boot connected with Jack's head and he went tumbling into the crater. Dare ran after him, slipping down the side.

"You were wrong!" Sawyer yelled. "That's the damn Swan hatch blown up, just like we left it!" He climbed into the crater. "You said we could it stop it from being built! That our plane would never crash on this island!" Dare put her hand on Sawyer's chest, trying to keep him away from Jack. "He blew us right back to where we started! Except Juliet's _dead_! She's dead you son of a bitch because you were wrong!"

"Sawyer, I'm sorry," Jack said desperately. "I thought we were supposed… I thought it would work!"

"Well, it didn't!" Sawyer spat.

"The bomb must have gone off," Jack said, standing up.

"Hey, guys, let's just calm down," Dare said nervously. She knew she was stepping into something completely over her head.

"You think if that bomb went off, we'd still be standing here?" Sawyer yelled back.

"I don't know," Jack answered.

"That's right! You don't! For once, you don't know!"

Suddenly, Jin appeared and yelled down to them, "Jack, Sayid needs help!"

Dare silently thanked Jin for showing up when he did. Sawyer was close to snapping.

"Where is he?" Jack asked.

"With Hurley in the van. Two minutes away. He's still bleeding. We don't know what to do."

Adonia jumped down into the crater and said, "Everyone shut up. Did you hear that?"

Everyone listened and they could just barely make out the word "help" being called from beneath the rubble.

"Juliet?" Sawyer yelled, looking frantic.

"James?"

Everyone started removing debris.

"Hang on, Juliet, we're coming!" Sawyer yelled into the debris. They were all removing the debris as fast as they could, but a lot of it was too heavy. Jin handed Jack a flashlight and Jack shined it down the hole.

"I think I can get down there if we move this beam," Sawyer said, touching a giant metal beam. "But it's too heavy. We need something to pull it. Jin, the van has chains. Go get them."

Jin returned five minutes later with the van. He backed it up to the edge of the crater and Jack grabbed the chains. Sawyer called for Juliet again.

"Stop it, Sawyer," Adonia said, not harshly. "The van is coming. The chains are here."

"She's not making any more noises," he said pathetically.

"Well, she knows we're here. She's probably just resting," Adonia said. She placed her hand on Sawyer's back in a sort of half-hug.

"If she dies," Sawyer said, full of contempt. "I'll kill him." He looked over at Jack.


	61. Flashsideways Coincidence

"_Your turn," Dare said. She passed over her phone where there was an intense game of Tic-Tac-Toe going on. _

"_Why do you always pick the middle? Don't you even want to go in the corner sometimes?" Adonia asked. She pressed her thumb to the screen and grinned. "Check mate." She handed the phone back._

"_Son of a -! How do you always win?" Dare frowned and started a new game. "I'm going to win this time."_

_The speakers on the plane clicked on and the stewardess said, "Ladies and gentlemen, nothing to be alarmed about, but if there is a doctor on the plane, please press your call button."_

_Adonia and Dare exchanged a dark look. "I'm not a doctor," Dare said._

"_I think you qualify," Adonia pointed out._

_Dare sighed deeply and pressed her call button. Five or so rows ahead of the girls, where the Scottish man had taken refuge, another person pressed his call button. The stewardess went to him first and Dare was grateful – she wasn't much in the mood for going back to work just yet._

_Then, she saw the doctor stand up. "It's Jack!" Dare realized. "It's Doctor Shephard. He's our resident spinal surgeon at St. Sebastian's."_

"_Whoa. Talk about coincidence," Adonia said. "Hey… is he single?"_

_Dare stared at her friend incredulously._

"_What? I'm just asking. He's adorable! Totally your type."_

"_Maybe he's _your_ type," Dare said, rolling her eyes. "I'll be right back. I'm going to go find out what's happening."_

_Dare walked down the aisle and into the front part of the plane where everyone seemed to be gathered._

"_I'm sorry, miss, but I'm going to have to ask you to take your seat-," the stewardess started saying._

"_Actually, I'm a nurse," Dare said. At the sound of her voice, Jack turned around and at first looked shocked, then delighted to see Dare. _

"_Genna! What are you doing here?"_

"_I could ask you the same thing, Jack," Dare said with a smile. "So, what's going on?"_

"_There's something wrong with the lock. It's jammed or something," said a different stewardess, indicating a bathroom door. "A passenger went into the restroom about half an hour ago and he's not responding when we knock."_

"_Can I be of assistance?" A Middle Eastern man walked up. "Excuse me." He kicked in the door._

_A young man with dyed-blond hair was unconscious, leaning against the wall. Jack went in and took his pulse while Dare tried to listen to his breath. "He's not breathing," Dare announced. They pulled him out and laid him down. _

"_Something's blocking his air passage," Jack said. "We have to open him up. I need something sharp. A razor. I've got a pen…" Jack searched his jacket, but came up with nothing. _

"_It's regulation," said the stewardess. "There's nothing sharp."_

"_I had a pen in my jacket, it's gone," Jack said. He looked up at Dare and she tilted the man's head back. Jack reached his hand into his throat and pulled out a bag of drugs. "I got it," Jack said._

"_Am I alive?" the man asked, coming to. He coughed._

"_Yes, you're alive," Dare replied. Something about him seemed oddly familiar._

"_Terrific," he said, sounding depressed._


	62. Juliet's Tragedy

The van pulled the beam out and Sawyer dug through the rubble. Dare recognized the exercise bike from the hatch that seemed so long ago. He reached Juliet. It was hard to hear what they were saying, but that was probably for the best.

"Sawyer?" Kate yelled down into the hatch.

Jack was at the van looking at Sayid. Dare went over to them. "You're not going to get that bullet out," Jack said to him. "The bleeding won't stop. There's nothing I can do for him."

"There's something I can do," Hurley replied. "There's a Temple. If we get Sayid there, we can save him."

"And you know this, how?" Miles asked.

"This guy Jacob told me just before you got here," Hurley answered.

"You saw Jacob?" Dare asked incredulously.

"It doesn't matter. Can you fix Sayid, Jack?"

"No," Jack replied.

"Then you're going to have to let me do it."

"Sawyer!" Dare turned at the sound of Adonia's voice. Sawyer was climbing out of the hole with Juliet in his arms.

His stare was venomous as he looked at Jack and said, "You did this."


	63. Flashsideways Charlie

_Two men put zip-tie handcuffs on the man whose life Jack had just saved. They led him to his seat. As he passed Dare and Jack, the man said, "You should've let that happen, man. I was supposed to die."_

"_Don't take it personally," Dare said, "Some people just don't know how to say thanks."_

_Jack returned to his seat and Dare took her place next to him – the Scottish man had gone, presumably back to his proper seat. She figured Adonia would be okay for a while alone. _

"_So what were you in Sydney for?" Dare asked._

_Before Jack could answer, the pilot came over the speakers and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, Captain Norris here. We're now beginning our final descent into Los Angeles. 72 degrees, six mile visibility and winds out of the southwest at five miles an hour."_

"_Guess I'd better get back to my real seat," Dare said with a smile. _

"_Yeah, I'll see you at work," Jack said._


	64. Not a Guitar

Juliet was laid on the ground, a blanket covering her. Adonia was crying silently, Dan's arm around her shoulders. Dare took a deep breath. She needed to do something before she started to cry too. She went over to the van and helped Jin and Jack lay Sayid down on a stretcher they had in the van.

Hurley pulled a guitar case out of the van, too, and Miles asked, "We gonna sing Kumbaya on the way?"

"It's not a guitar, man," Hurley said.

"Then, what is it?"

Hurley didn't answer.

"Hey Miles, do you mind hanging back?" Sawyer shouted to him.

"You got it, boss," Miles replied.

"Are we ready?" Hurley asked.

"Whenever you are," Dare answered.


	65. Found the Temple

Jin was leading the way. They stopped when they got to some ruins. They looked down to see a big hole in a wall.

"That's a big wall," Hurley commented.

"How are we going to get him over the top?" Jack asked.

Hurley stood above the hole and said, "We're not. We're bringing him in through here."

They went down into the hole one by one and Dare noticed a skeleton with one arm. Kate walked over to it and shook its clothes. A book fell out.

"Who brings a book into a cave?" Adonia asked.

Kate grabbed some matches next to the skeleton and lit a torch.

"And why is his arm missing?" Dare asked.

"It was ripped off when he was attacked by the black smoke," Jin answered.

"Well, this is going to be awesome," Hurley said sarcastically. They continued down the tunnel. They came to a big hole in the floor and Kate got around it first with the torch. Hurley then followed, toting his guitar case. Adonia followed, then Dare. Once on the other side, Dare squinted her eyes, looking for Adonia.

"Where's Adonia?" Dan asked, joining Dare's side.

"She's right over there," Hurley said. He shined the flashlight ahead, but no one was there.

Dan took the flashlight from Hurley and went forward, looking and yelling for her, but there was no answer. Dan started to run, Dare close behind. Dan turned the corner, and when Dare followed, he was gone. "Jack!" she heard Hurley call from behind her. She whipped around, but no one was there. She heard whispering, then felt something collide with the back of her head. She fell.

She was dragged outside where several men stood in old-looking clothing. Everyone was there.

"Guess we found the temple," Adonia noted.


	66. Flashsideways Home With Dad

_Dare and Adonia stood at the baggage claim waiting for their suitcases to roll by. Adonia checked her phone. "Dad's cooking tonight. Wants to know if you'll come," Adonia said._

_Dare sighed. "I don't know if I want to do anything but sleep."_

_Adonia's phone went off again and she pressed a button. "It's lasagna."_

"_I'm in," Dare replied immediately. Adonia laughed, then noticed the two girls' bags and dove for them. She came back with them. "Wow," Dare said. "Impressive. But I could've gotten my own, you know."_

"_I figured, you saved a guy's life and I got your luggage. We're both good people now."_

"_Right." Dare laughed and took her bag._

_Dare and Adonia decided to grab separate cabs – they figured they'd make it easier on the cab drivers that way. Adonia went to her own apartment and Dare to hers._

_As the cab drove away, leaving Dare at the entrance to her apartment building, she thought about calling it back and asking him to wait. She didn't feel like driving much, but it was too late. She carried her bag to the elevator, took it to the third floor and stood at the front door of her apartment. Not wanting to linger too long, she left the suitcase in the entryway, grabbed her car keys, and left. Being there reminded her too much of Brendon; he had practically lived there with Dare._

_She hopped in the car and realized she still had three hours until dinner with Adonia and her family. That left only one place to go, so she turned the car on and drove to her father's house. It was on the outskirts of L.A., so it took ten minutes to drive there. Dare parked in the driveway and sat. She wasn't sure how to say what she was about to say. True, her dad had never really _loved_ Brendon, but he knew how much Dare cared for him. _

_She went inside the cute two-bedroom house without knocking. "Hey! I'm back!" she announced. The car was outside, so she knew someone must have been home. She went into the living room and saw her grandfather – who also lived there – filling out a crossword puzzle. _

"_Hey Granddad," Dare said with a smile. _

"_Hey!" he replied with a smile. His oxygen tank prohibited him from getting up, so she bent down to hug him. "Back from the great outback," he said. _

"_I certainly am," she said. "Where's Dad?"_

_He pointed at the kitchen. "Making dinner."_

"_You can't mean that," Dare said with a frown. Her dad was a notoriously bad cook._

"_See for yourself."_

_Dare went into the kitchen. "Hey Dad," she said._

"_Genna! You're back early!" Ben said with a smile. They hugged._

"_Um. Yeah. Not everything went according to plan." _

"_Well, what happened?" he asked, concerned. He took off his round glasses and studied her face._

"_Well, Addie and I got there and we found Brendon and it was all going so well until Brendon broke up with me. I guess he'd been sitting on it awhile and you know, he's right – we couldn't have made it work. I mean, he's going to be away for a long time and I'm sure that we wouldn't have been able to…" Her voice faltered, so she stopped. She told herself she wasn't going to cry, yet here she was._

"_Hey, hey. Don't cry," Ben said. He hugged her again and she buried her face in his shoulder. A minute later, when she'd finally calmed down, Ben said, "You know, I always knew he wasn't the one."_

"_Dad, don't," Dare warned. She didn't want to hear the 'I told you so' speech just yet. _

"_When your mother died, I thought that was end, too."_

_Dare froze. It was almost never that she heard him talk about her mom. It had only been a year since she died from terminal cancer, so Dare just assumed it would get better with time. _

"_Brendon's not dead, though," Dare said. "He _chose_ to leave, which is worse is some ways."_

"_I suppose…" Ben stopped when the microwave went off. _

"_What is that?" Dare asked._

"_Dinner."_

"_You're kidding. You've been feeding Granddad TV dinners?" She didn't wait for him to answer before walking over to the microwave, taking the black plastic, and tossing it straight into the trashcan. "I'll make dinner."_

"_There's nothing to make," Ben said, sounding defeated._

_Dare opened a cabinet and took out some pasta. "There's always something to make," she retorted. As she set a pot of water to boil, she said, "Did I ever mention Jack Shephard to you?"_

_Ben thought a moment. "No, can't say you have. Is he important? Wait. Did you find a new guy _already_?"_

"_No!" Dare snapped. "Sorry. No. He's our chief of surgery at St. Sebastian's and he was also on the same flight back from Sydney with me. It was just a pretty funny coincidence."_

"_Don't mistake coincidence for fate."_

_Dare rolled her eyes. "He's about ten years older than I am, divorced, and has a kid. I don't think fate had any hand in that. Though… we did end up saving some guy's life while on the plane." _

"_See?"_

"_Yeah, yeah. Whatever." Dare finished cooking the pasta. She had to stop herself from eating any – reminding herself that there was the best lasagna in the world being made twenty minutes away at Adonia's parents' house._

_She joined her dad and grandfather in the living room, though. She still had an hour and a half to kill._

"_How was work?" her grandfather asked Ben._

_"I have a doctorate in modern European history and yet I'm babysitting burnouts in detention." _

_"Detention, huh?" Dare asked, slightly amused. She went to her grandfather's oxygen tank, unscrewed the tube, and went to the cabinet for a replacement._

_"And the worst of is, as I look out at those ingrates that I'm tasked with watching, I can't help but think that maybe I'm more of a loser than any of them." Dare took the new tank and screwed it back in._

_"This isn't the life I wanted for you, Ben. I wanted so much more." _

_"I know." _

_"That's why I signed up for that damn Dharma Initiative and took you to the island. They were decent people. Smarter than I'll ever be. Imagine how different our lives would have been if we'd have stayed." _

_"Yes, we'd have both lived happily ever after." _

_"I'm serious, Ben. Who knows what you would've become?" _

_Dare turned on the oxygen and said, "Now, does that feel better, Granddad?" _

_"Ah, yes. Thank you." _


	67. Sayid Underwater

At the Temple, a Japanese man walked out with others following behind him. Dare recognized one girl as the flight attendant from 815. He said something in Japanese and the tall men next to him translated: "Who are you?"

"I know who they are," the flight attendant said, stepping forward. "They were on the first plane, Oceanic 815 along with me."

The Japanese man spoke again and the translator said, "You sure?" The Japanese man started to walk away and the translator said, "Shoot them." The other men raised their guns. Dare and the rest raised their hands. This was not going so well…

"Jacob sent us!" Hurley suddenly shouted.

Everyone froze. The Japanese man turned and said something. The translator said, "What did you just say?"

"I said Jacob sent us. He said you would help our friend." Hurley pointed to Sayid.

The Japanese man spoke and the translator said, "He wants you to prove it."

Nobody said anything and the Japanese man gave a command. The men cocked their guns again. Hurley yelled, "He gave that guitar case!"

The man who held the guitar case came forward and laid it on the ground. The Japanese man spoke and the translator asked, "Did you look inside it?"

"Maybe," Hurley said, eyes wide.

The Japanese man opened the case and inside is an ankh. He picked it up and studied it. Then, he broke it. Hurlye cried out, "Dude!" but then the man pulled out a slip of paper and said something. The translator asked, "What are your names?"

"Hugo Reyes," Hurley answered immediately. He turned to the rest. "Tell him."

"Jin Soo-Kwon."

"Kate Austen."

"Adonia Sterling."

"Daniel Faraday."

"Jack Shephard."

"Genavieve Belacqua."

Everyone spoke their own name.

"What about him?" The translator asked, indicating Sayid.

"Sayid Jarrah," Jack replied.

The Japanese man looked at the list and then said something. The translator said to get Sayid to the spring.

"I carried that case across the ocean and, like, through time. So I want to know what that paper says," Hurley said.

"The paper says that if your friend there dies, we're in a lot of trouble," the translator replied.

The men took Sayid inside the Temple and everyone followed. Dare studied the inside, looking for possible escape routes if they were necessary. Inside there was a pool with a fountain. The water was muddy and gross looking.

"The water isn't clear. What happened?" the translator asked.

The Japanese man spoke and then went to the pool. He took a knife and cut his own hand. He placed it in the water. The germophobe in Dare wanted to yell at him, but she held back. He lifted his hand out of the water and it was still bloody. The translator looked upset. The Japanese man said something and the translator asked, "Who did this to him?" He pointed at Sayid.

"It's my fault," Jack said. "I didn't shoot him, but it's my fault."

The Japanese man spoke and the translator said, "If we do this, there are risks. You understand?"

"Do what you have to do," Jack replied.

Dare was shocked. The Jack she knew wouldn't have just let people who were obviously crazy take a dying man away. Adonia seemed to be thinking the same thing, though neither of them spoke up.

Some men took off the coveralls that Sayid was still wearing and took him to the pool. The Japanese man turned over an hourglass and then men in the pool plunged Sayid face-first into the water.

"What are they doing?" Adonia shouted, looking terrified.

"Can unconscious people hold their breath?" Hurley asked.

"No," Jack answered, looking concerned.

Sayid's body stirred and started struggling, but the men didn't let him up.

"He's awake! Let him up!" Dan yelled.

"What are they waiting for?" Dare asked, close to tears.

"That's enough!" Kate said.

The Japanese man ignored them, still staring at the hourglass.

"Let him up!" Jack shouted. He went to the Japanese man who promptly twisted Jack's arm. Jack cried out in pain.

"You're not saving him, you're drowning him!" Hurley yelled.

Sayid stopped fighting. The remainder of the sand went into the bottom of the hourglass and the Japanese man raised his hand. The men brought a limp Sayid out of the water and laid him on a mat.

The Japanese man closed Sayid's eyes and said something. The translator said, "Your friend is dead."

"_What_?" Dare shouted in disbelief. Jack ran over and checked Sayid. He began CPR.

Adonia joined his side and placed her hand gently on his shoulder. "Jack, stop. What are you doing? He's dead. He's dead, Jack."

Jack stopped.


	68. Panic At the Temple

Everyone was sitting by the pool of water silently, unsure of what to say. Dan was leaning against the stone wall with Adonia next to him, her head against his arm. Dare was next to Jack. She knew Jack was blaming himself – wishing he hadn't given these crazy people permission to take Sayid. Everyone felt that guilt, though.

The flight attendant – whose name was Cindy, Dare learned – came into the room accompanied by two young children. Then, two men came in, dragging Sawyer and Miles with them. Dare stood up, shocked. Last time they'd been seen, Sawyer was burying Juliet and had asked Miles to stay with him while Dare and the rest went to find help for Sayid.

"What happened?" Dare asked.

"They jumped us in the jungle," Miles replied. "Sawyer took four of them our before one of them hit him with a damn rock." Sawyer was indeed unconscious.

The translator walked in and said to Hurley, "You. Come with me."

"Come with you where?" Hurley looked to Jack who seemed concerned.

Hurley went with the translator, anyway. Not a minute later, an alarm started to sound and the people of the Temple were rushing around. Dare heard someone yell that everyone should get to their posts. Were they under attack?

Someone started spreading ash around the Temple and fires were being put out. Someone else lit a rocket and it went off while others barricaded the doors.

"Guess we're not getting out of here," Adonia said, looking worried.

"This isn't to keep you in," the translator said. He walked back to them, Hurley following. "It's to keep him out." Dare wondered who he was talking about, but figured asking would be useless.

Hurley went over to Sayid and said something to him. Miles went over, too. Dare looked over at Adonia and smiled reassuringly. Kate was with Sawyer who was waking up.

"Hey," Jack said, standing next to Dare. "Everything's going to be okay."

"Is it, Jack?" Dare asked critically. "Because I've been told that a lot on this island and it almost never is."


	69. Flashsideways Adonia's Family

"_I'm back!" Adonia announced loudly as she stepped into her parents' house. The large house was quaint and in Adonia's eyes it would always be home. Her own one-bedroom apartment could never replace the house she grew up in. _

_She went into the living room and found her father on the couch reading a book. "Hey Dad," she said with a smile._

_He looked up from his book and grinned. His light blue eyes seemed exceptionally bright in the evening sun. Adonia's green eyes, olive skin, and long brown hair made her seem foreign compared to her father, but she had his personality down to a tee. "Hey, kiddo!" he said. He got up and hugged his daughter. "Hope the flight was okay?"_

"_A little turbulence, but the rest was smooth flying," she replied._

_He made a sound of disapproval and said, "Had I been the pilot, there would've been no turbulence. None at all. I've got a trick for avoiding that –"_

"_Frank, who are you talking to?" Adonia's mother called from the kitchen. _

"_I'm sure you would have been a wonderful pilot, Dad, but you weren't, so get over it." Adonia smiled and walked off into the kitchen to join her mother._

"_I should teach you a lesson one day," Frank said, following her. "My father – your grandfather – was a pilot, too, you know. It's practically a Lapidus tradition!" _

"_Are you pestering her again about flying?" Adonia's mother asked. Adonia hugged her mother when she walked in. If she got her personality from her father, Adonia most definitely got her looks from her mother – they were identical; the same eyes, skin, and hair. They even stood at the same height. The only defining difference was Adonia's mother had cut her hair short two summers ago and still hadn't grown it back._

"_I wish you would," Adonia complained, tugging at her mother's hair. "It was so pretty when it was longer!"_

"_You have enough hair for the both of us," her mother replied. "Besides, it's your father that needs a hair stylist right now. I keep asking him to cut it, but he refuses."_

"_I like it long," Frank said, self-consciously touching his shoulder-length silver hair. _

"_I like it, too," Adonia agreed. _

"_So, is Genna joining us tonight?" Frank asked._

"_Yeah. Listen… there's something I should tell you before she comes. We came back from Sydney a little early because not everything went… according to plan." Adonia bit her lip. "She and Brendon broke up and she's really upset about it."_

_Adonia's mother put the wooden spoon down she was using to mix sauce with and stared at her daughter in disbelief. "You're kidding!" she said. "I thought they were in it for the long haul."_

"_So did we all," Adonia said sadly._

"_They were dating for a long time," Frank said._

"_Four years," Adonia said. "She's… taking it pretty well, but I just didn't want you guys to say anything that would upset her."_

"_Of course not," Frank agreed graciously. "You know she's practically our second daughter and definitely the better one."_

"_Gee, thanks," Adonia replied, rolling her eyes._

"_Dinner will be ready in an hour if you want to call her," Adonia's mother said._

"_Sure. I'll be right back," Adonia said, taking her phone out._


	70. Alive Again

The translator returned with two men. Everyone was still gathered around the muddy pool, confused as to what was going on. "Are you Shephard?" the translator asked, looking at Jack. Jack said yes and the translator said, "We need to speak to you privately."

"If you've got something to say to me, then say it. Otherwise, leave me alone."

"I don't think you're understanding me, here. I'm asking politely. You either get up and come with us on your own, or I'll have you dragged out."

Jack stood up and the translator added, "Because we are going to have this conversation and it's not going to be here."

"Is that right?" Jack asked. He pushed one of the other men, but the man grabbed Jack.

Then, Hurley called Jack's name. Dare looked over to where he was and saw it, but couldn't quite believe it.

"Oh my God," Adonia said.

"What happened?" It was Sayid. He was alive, though obviously still out of it.

The translator disappeared into a stone hallway connected to the pool room. Jack went to Sayid. "It worked?" Dan asked, coming over to Sayid along with everyone else.

"Dude, you're okay!" Hurley exclaimed happily. He hugged Sayid before Jack told him to let him breathe.

Jack asked Miles to get some water, then to Sayid he said, "Hey, how you feeling?"

"A little lightheaded," he answered. "What happened to me?"

"You died," Dare answered.

"How is that even possible?" Adonia asked Dan. "Now he's fine?"

"Of course he's fine," Sawyer answered from behind her. He came forward and stood next to her. "He's an Iraqi torturer who shoots kids; he definitely deserves another go around." Dare noticed he was looking outside, so she asked, "What are you looking at?"

"How many guys with guns do you think are outside this place?" he asked.

"What?" Adonia said.

"I was out cold when they brought me in here. How many guards did you see? 5? 10? 100?"

"What are you thinking?" Dan asked.

"I'm thinking about running."


	71. Volunteer

Jin and Jack helped Sayid go outside. Everyone followed. They sat him down and Sayid asked, "Who are these people? What do they want?"

"It's the Others, dude," Hurley answered. "They caught us. Again. I don't know, I think they're trying to protect us."

"As you can see," Miles said, the usual sarcasm in his voice," Hugo, here, assumed the leadership position, so that's pretty great."

"What?" Sayid asked, looking at Jack.

"The wound… it's almost completely closed," Jack noted, looking at Sayid's bullet wound.

"Thank you, Jack," he said.

"For what?"

"Saving my life."

The Japanese man walked out with his translator and some other men. The Japanese man seemed shocked to see Sayid alive. He said something and the translator said, "Mr. Jarrah, will you come with us, please?"

"Come with you where?" he asked.

"Inside," the translator said. "Nothing to worry about-"

"I'm coming with him," Jack cut in.

"Oh, I'm sorry," the translator replied. "We need to talk to him alone. Just a few questions."

"You have a few questions? Well, so do we," Dare snapped. "I mean, let's start with who are you? Why are you holding us here, you-"

The Japanese man interrupted her and the translator said, "Once we've spoken to Mr. Jarrah, we'll be more than happy to tell you everything you want to know."

"Something tells me that you're not going to be happy to tell us anything," Adonia said.

The Japanese man looked around and gave some command. Two men grabbed Jack and they started fighting. Then, a gun fired. Everyone turned to see Sawyer pointing the gun. The translator quickly told everyone not to shoot and to lower their weapons. "Please," he said. "You don't have to do this. We won't hurt your friend."

"He ain't my friend," Sawyer spat. "Do what you want with him and anybody else. But me, I'm walking out of here."

Dare stepped forward. "Sawyer, don't," she said.

"I'm gone, you understand?" He started moving things away from the big doors so he could get out.

"Please, you have to stay," the Japanese man said in English.

"No, I don't," Sawyer said. He opened the door and added, "Don't come after me."

Some of the men took Sayid and Jack asked where they were taking him.

"Where did Ford go?" the translator asked.

"What?" Jack said.

"Ford. Your friend who just ran out of here. Where did he go?"

"How are we supposed to know?" Adonia asked.

"You really expect us to believe that?" the translator said.

"He told me he wanted to kill me," Jack pointed out. "You believe that?"

"I can bring him back," Dare said.

"Do you know where he went?" he asked.

"No, but I can track him."

Adonia grabbed Dare by the shoulder. "What the hell are you thinking?" she asked. "There's something out there!"

"Is there?" Dare asked. "I don't know if I believe that. And if there is something out there, then Sawyer's in danger. Look… he helped me with Ben, so I at least owe him this." She turned her attention back to the translator. "Let me go. I can bring him back and I can make him stay."

"Are you sure you want to go out there alone with these people?" Dan asked, worried.

"I'll go with her," Jin volunteered. Dare was grateful. She needed someone she knew was on her side if some of the Others were going to be with her.

"What makes you think he'll listen to you?" the translator asked.

"I can be very convincing when I want to be," Dare replied.


	72. Words of Wisdom

Dare was putting water bottles, cloths, and some gauze Jack gave her in her bag when Aldo – one of the Others who was coming with her and Jin – said, "You better not slow us down."

"You better not slow me down," she replied.

"I'd go with you," Adonia said coming up to her, "but…"

"But, Dan wouldn't let you. I know. And he's right. I'm used to this stuff, anyway. I won't be gone long. Make sure you take care of Sayid."

"I will." Adonia turned to go, but then turned back. The girls hugged. "Be careful," Adonia said.


	73. Escaping

Dare trekked through the jungle. Jin was behind her and two of the Others were in front of her. She caught up with Aldo and asked, "So, why do you people want to keep us at the Temple?"

"We're protecting you."

"From what?"

"You've been on this island awhile, right? Ever seen a pillar of black smoke that makes a ticka-ticka sound? Looks pissed off?"

"Yeah."

"From that."

Jin joined them and asked, "Do you know anything about another plane coming in? An Ajira flight?" Dare had almost forgotten about Sun, Ben, and the others on flight 316 that hadn't traveled back in time with them.

"I'm sorry, is this a press conference?" Aldo asked, frustrated.

"I think he means the one that landed –" the other man started to say, but Aldo cut him off: "Justin, shut up!"

They continued walking, but Dare stopped and looked at some saplings. One of the branches was snapped, but it looked deliberate. "No, no. That's a decoy trail. He went this way," she said.

"And you're basing that on what?" Aldo asked.

"Experience," she said.

"Aldo," Justin said.

"What?"

"I think she's right."

"Of course she is," Aldo said, rolling his eyes. "After you, princess."

They continued on.

"So what's your strategy for bringing the cowboy back? I hope you got one, because he shot a guy on his way out. If he tries that on me, I'm going to blow his head off."

Dare took out her water bottle and drank. Justin grabbed her shoulder and said, "Whoa! Watch it." Dare looked down and saw a trip wire on the ground.

"Thanks," Dare said. They looked up and saw a net full of rocks waiting to fall.

"It looks it's one of Rousseau's traps," Jin noted.

"The French woman? She's been dead for years. This couldn't be one of –" Justin said. Again, he was cut off by Aldo. "Justin! Shut. Up."

Dare shoved her canteen at Aldo's chest. "What was he going to say?"

Aldo looked furious. "Three years ago, your friends escaped from Hydra Island and on their way out, they decided to knock out the guard with the butt of a rifle. That would be me. So, until I get a little respect -"

Dare knocked Aldo across the head with the canteen and then threw the bottle at the trip wire. The rocks fell on Justin and Aldo fell down, unconscious. Dare took a pistol and rifle from them.

"What are you doing?" Jin asked, shocked.

"Escaping," she replied.


	74. No White Light

At the Temple, two men brought Sayid back into the room with the spring. Adonia yelled, "Jack, he's back!" Sayid didn't look good.

Miles and Hurley sat Sayid down against a pillar.

Jack asked what happened and Sayid answered, "They tortured me."

"Why?" Adonia asked.

"Don't know. They didn't ask me any questions."

Jack went to the guards standing on either side of where the Japanese guy was. "Step aside," he said. They did and Jack disappeared down the hall.

"Why would they torture you and not ask any questions?" Adonia asked Sayid.

"I don't know. They said it was some kind of test," Sayid said.

Miles sat down across from Sayid and they started discussing Sayid's death – Miles was sort of an expert in that area.

"So nothing? There wasn't anything?" Miles asked. "No white light? Angels singing? No dead relatives?"

"I remember being shot," Sayid replied.

"You're not a zombie, right?" Hurley asked. Adonia barely suppressed a laugh.

"No. I am not a zombie," Sayid replied with infinite patience.

Jack returned and asked if he could have a moment alone with Sayid.

"Yeah… see, private talks kind of freak me out because they usually lead to me having to do something that I don't fully understand," Hurley said.

"I'm right there with you," Jack replied.

"It's fine," Dan said, taking Adonia's hand. "We'll be in the food court if you need us." Jack laughed and sat down with Sayid while everyone else left.


	75. Good Luck, Jin

Jin followed Dare through the jungle. She was walking faster now, having picked up Sawyer's real trail. "Wait," he said. "Where are you going?"

"Catching up with Sawyer," she said.

"So you never planned to bring him back to the Temple?"

Dare stopped and looked at Jin. "No. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't convince him to come back, but I have to try because I don't think he's thinking straight right now."

"Where did your plane land, Dare?"

"What?"

"The Ajira plane that you, Adonia, Jack, and Hurley came in on. Where did it land?"

"I don't know," she answered truthfully.

"Sun was on that plane, too! I have to find her!"

"You think _they're_ going to tell you? You think they care about you or about or about any of us?"

"Who do you care about, Dare?"

"Good luck, Jin," she snapped. She turned and walked away.

"Once you catch up with Sawyer, then what?" Jin called after her.

"I guess we'll figure that out together."


	76. Sawyer's Plight

Sawyer's trail led, not surprisingly, to the Barracks. Dare found his and Juliet's house and went inside. She heard clattering coming from a bedroom in the back, down a hallway. She peeked in and saw Sawyer pulling up floorboards. He pulled out a shoebox and sat down with it. He opened it and pulled out a little black bag and began to cry. Dare couldn't let Sawyer know she saw him like that – it would humiliate him – so she tried to creep away quietly, but she stepped on a squeaky floorboard.

"Who's there?" Sawyer shouted angrily. He burst into the hallway, gun held high. "What the hell are you doing here?" he asked, looking at Dare.

"I was worried about you," she said lamely.

He walked past her and out the door without saying a word.

Dare found him sitting at the end of the dock where the sub used to be in 1977. Seemed forever ago. She joined Sawyer's side to find that he was still crying.

"After we were rescued… everyone else decided to go back to normal life. Well, not really normal," Dare said with a small laugh. "But I stayed with Desmond under a fake name. The world thought I was one of the ones who died when flight 815 crashed. We got married. And I have a son."

Sawyer looked at her. "Why are you telling me this?" he asked.

"Because for those same three years that I was with Des, you were with Juliet. I can't say I know what you're feeling, but I know what it's like to love someone and then lose them. I don't think we're ever getting off this island again." Dare looked down at Sawyer's hands where he was fiddling with a diamond ring. "She knew you loved her."

"It's my fault," he said softly. "She was sitting right there, right where you are now, trying to leave this place. And I convinced her to stay. I made her stay on the island because I didn't want to be alone. You understand that, right? But I think some of us are meant to be alone." He looked down at the ring in his hand. "I was going to ask her to marry me." He stood up and threw the ring into the water. "You can probably make it back to the Temple by nightfall." He walked away, disappearing into his old Dharma house.


	77. Locke's Locks

In the courtyard of the Temple, Hurley and Adonia were playing tic-tac-toe with sticks and leaves. "Tie again, dude," Hurley said.

"Shocker," Adonia replied sarcastically. "That's it for me. I'm beat."

"You hungry?"

"Starving. You?"

"I could eat. Let's see if I can't find some food for us." Hurley smiled and Adonia smiled back. He went into the room with the spring, so Adonia went over to Dan who was writing in his journal, flipping through it everyone once and a while and talking out loud.

"Why do you work so hard? This is practically a vacation!" Adonia said with a laugh.

Dan looked up. "Hey. I'm just working out the last of some equations."

"Did you figure out how Sayid came back to life?" Adonia asked, sitting next to him.

He looked at her and shut his journal. "I think it's safe to say we've passed the realm of physics into something much deeper here."

Adonia sighed. "Do you think Dare's okay? She's been gone for almost a day now."

"She's tough. She can fend for herself."

"So… what you're saying is that you wouldn't let me go because you don't think I can fend for myself?"

Dan laughed. "I'm not letting you go because I believe that whatever these people are doing for whatever reason they're doing it - they honestly believe this is the safest place to be right now. And if there's one thing we should know about the Others, it's that they're exceptionally good at the self-preservation aspect of life."

"How do you know they're not just lying to keep us here?" Adonia asked.

"I don't. But... somehow I feel like we're supposed to be here."

"Right. You know you're sounding more and more like Locke everyday," Adonia said. She frowned. She still hadn't quite wrapped her head around the fact that Locke had killed himself. It was so unlike that man of faith, rustic outbacker that it didn't even seem true yet.

"I've got better hair," Dan quipped. She smiled at him and he kissed her.

"If you ever went bald," she said, pulling away, "I'd have to kill you."


	78. Poison Pill

Sayid walked out to the courtyard of the Temple. Adonia noticed everyone staring at him, looking absolutely terrified. He walked over to where Adonia, Dan, and now Jack were sitting. "Jack," he said.

"Sayid," Jack replied.

Sayid looked around; he had obviously noticed all the staring, too. "Why are they all staring at me?"

"Just ignore them," Adonia said, looking scornful.

Sayid sat with them. "Look," he said. "You told me these people think I have an infection. That they wanted to give me some mysterious pill that you instructed me not to take. And then you disappeared. What are you hiding from me?"

"Pill?" Adonia asked, interested.

"The pill was poison," Jack replied. "They wanted me to kill you. Whatever it is they think happened to you, Sayid, they say it happened to someone else, too."

"Who?"

Jack hesitated and exchanged a look with Adonia. "What?" she asked. "Is it someone we know?"

"Yeah. It was Claire."


	79. Let's Go See Jacob

Hurley finally returned – he had said he was going to find some food for him and Adonia, but had been gone for quite some time. He joined Dan, Adonia, Jack, and Sayid in the courtyard and sat next to Jack. "Be cool, man. Act natural." Hurley looked around nervously.

Adonia raised an eyebrow. "What are you doing, Hurley?"

"Dude, keep your voice down. I'm going to get up and go. Wait ten seconds and then I want Jack and Adonia to follow me."

Jack frowned. Dan and Adonia looked at each other, both thoroughly confused. "Follow you where exactly?" Dan asked.

"Sorry, dude. Can't tell you. I can only tell Adonia and Jack."

"Would you excuse us?" Jack asked, looking from Sayid to Dan.

"Gladly," Sayid said, looking weary. He and Dan left.

"What is this about, Hurley?" Adonia asked.

"I found a secret tunnel," he said, still talking in a soft voice. "It leads out to the jungle."

"You found a secret tunnel?" Jack repeated, sounding skeptical.

"Well, Jacob told me about it. Said you, me, and Adonia have to go."

"I'm not going anywhere, Hurley," Adonia said. She smiled. "I'm sorry."

"I told Jacob you'd say that, so he told me to tell you that you owe him one."

Adonia was shocked. She hadn't quite let herself believe that Hurley could actually talk to Jacob when no one else could even see him. And yet Hurley had said the exact thing she had been thinking. After all, it was under Jacob's instructions that she came back to the island and was able to get Dan's memory back. She _did_ owe Jacob.

"All right," Adonia said, standing. "I'll go. But… I have to convince Dan." She went over to he was sitting with Sayid.

"Hey," he said when she joined them. "What was all the secretiveness about?"

"Um. It's Dare," Adonia lied. She knew Dan wouldn't let her go without a legitimate excuse. "She's in trouble and Hurley says Jack and I need to go with him. I won't be gone long."

Dan held up his hand. "I'm sorry, what? How could Hurley possibly know if Dare's in trouble if he's sitting right there?"

"It's… complicated. You have to trust me, Dan. I have to go but I'll be back. I promise."

He looked torn, but finally he nodded and said, "Fine. You had better make it back in one piece, though. Be careful."

She threw her arms around his neck. "Thank you. I will." She rejoined Jack and Hurley.

"Where is Jacob?" Jack was asking Hurley as Adonia walked up.

"He's… kind of dead." Adonia felt her stomach drop. He was dead? How could that be?

"He turns up whenever he wants, like Obi-Wan Kenobi. If you want to talk to him, he's where we're going, dude."

Adonia bit her lip. This was probably going to be a lot more dangerous than she previously thought. Somehow the idea that Jacob was no longer alive made her more afraid, like she was no longer protected or something.

"Well, let's go see Jacob then," Jack said.


	80. Good Luck, Kate

Jack, Hurley, and Adonia walked down a small path, single file along a creek. They stopped when they came to a fork and Jack asked, "Which way?" Hurley looked at his arm where Adonia spied a bunch of writing. Then, he pointed to the right. They continued on. Adonia was just about to ask about the writing on Hurley's arm when she saw something that caught her eye. "Jack," she said softly, pointing at it. It was a backpack. He nodded, then sneaked forward quietly.

Dare whipped around, pointing her gun directly at Jack. She sighed in relief and pointed the gun back down.

"Whoa, hey, it's just us," he said.

"Jack. I almost shot you." She smiled and continued filling her cantine.

"I noticed," he said.

"Dare!" Adonia exclaimed, coming forward. "You're alive. Thank God."

"Have a little faith, would ya?" Dare joked. "Hey Hurley."

"Uh. Hey," he said, looking nervous.

"What are you doing out here?" Jack asked. "Where are Jin and Sawyer?"

"Jin went back to the Temple and… Sawyer's on his own." She looked down guiltily.

"Hey, Dare," Hurley said. "There's a secret door to get back into the Temple behind the north wall behind the big tree."

Dare raised an eyebrow. "And where are you guys going?"

"Come with us and then we can all go back to the Temple together," Adonia suggested. "Safety in numbers, right?"

Jack nodded, but Hurley stepped forward and said to Jack, "Dude, Jacob said just the three of us. She's kind of not invited."

"Well, I'm inviting her," Jack said.

"Hey, it's okay," Dare said. "You guys just go. I want to get back to the Temple anyway. I hope you find what you're looking for."

She made to walk away, then waited until Jack, Hurley, and Adonia were far ahead before following them. Hurley was obviously hiding something and it only made Dare more curious. Plus, she had no reason to be at the Temple anymore.

Dare followed them for about a mile, never close enough to see them. Suddenly, she heard a noise to her left. She grabbed her gun quietly and waited for whoever it was to get closer.

"Kate?" Dare asked, shocked. Now that she thought of it, she hadn't seen Kate since before she left. "What are you doing out here?"

"I'm… looking for Claire," Kate admitted.

"Claire? She's still here?"

Kate shook her head. "I don't know. But the reason I came back to the island was to find Claire so that Aaron can be with his real mother and I'm not going to give that up."

Dare nodded. "All right. But, just… be careful, okay? Here." She handed Kate the rifle she took off of Aldo.

"Thanks," Kate said. "So, what are you doing out here? Where's Sawyer?"

"He's still back at the barracks. I'm following Adonia, Jack, and Hurley. Apparently they're going somewhere that I'm not invited to, so of course I'm following."

Kate laughed. "Well, good luck with that."

"Same to you."


	81. Jack as a Dad

Adonia started falling behind as she, Hurley, and Jack continued their journey through the jungle. Jack noticed and stopped to wait for her.

"Don't do that," she said.

"Do what?" he asked.

"Wait for me. It makes me feel… I don't know. Sort of, dependent." She frowned. That's not at all what she had planned to say. She was bursting with all the emotions and feelings she still hadn't expressed after she kicked Jack out of her apartment when they were off of the island.

He laughed. "All right," he said. He continued on ahead of her.

"Hey, Jack. Can I ask you something?" she asked, catching up with him.

"Sure," he replied. They walked side by side.

"I want to apologize," she said. Well, she hadn't expected _that_ to come out, of all things.

"Apologize for what?" he asked, looking down at her with a confused expression.

"Not for kicking you out," she clarified. "But you were right. We did end up having to go back and I can't help but think that the reason you…" she trailed off, not wanting to bring up his descent into alcohol, prescription drugs, and depression. "Well, I should've been more supportive."

He shook his head. "I'm the one who should be apologizing. I put you in a position I shouldn't have."

Adonia hadn't noticed until then, but Hurley had slowly made his way back to them. "Whatever happened to you guys?" he asked. "I thought you guys were going to get married and have a dozen kids."

Adonia blushed and Jack laughed nervously. "Guess I wasn't cut out for it," Jack replied.

"Really?" Hurley said. "I think you'd make a great dad."

"I'd make a terrible dad."

Adonia stepped on something. She stopped and picked it up. Hurley and Jack turned to her. "What is that?" Hurley asked.

"An asthma inhaler," Adonia answered.

"Dude, it's Shannon's!" Hurley realized.

They looked around them. "We're at the caves," Jack said.

"The caves we used to live in?" Adonia asked. She put the inhaler down and studied the place; it seemed so different after three years… yet, she knew it wasn't the caves that had changed.

They went deeper into the caves and looked at the two skeletons they had discovered. "I totally forgot these were in here, man," Hurley said. "Wait a sec. What if we time traveled again to, like, dinosaur times and then we died and then we got buried here? What if these skeletons are us?"

Jack didn't reply and Adonia shook her head. "What is that?" Adonia asked, looking where Jack was. It was a pile of splintered wood.

"Did I ever tell you how I found this place?" Jack asked.

"You were looking for water, right?" Adonia said.

"No. I was chasing the ghost of my dead father. He led me here. That was his coffin before I smashed it to pieces."

"Why'd you do that?" Hurley asked.

Adonia put her hand on the small of Jack's back.

"Because he wasn't in it," Jack said.


	82. The Lighthouse

Jack, Adonia, and Hurley continued on their way through the jungle. "This is cool, dude," Hurley said, breaking the silence. "Very old school."

"What?" Jack said.

"You know, trekking through the jungle, on our way to do something that we don't quite understand. Good times. You mind if I ask you guys something?"

"Sure," Jack replied.

"Why'd you come back, you know, to the island?"

"Why'd you come back?" Adonia asked Hurley in turn.

"Back in L.A.," he said, "Jacob hopped into the back of my cab and told me I was supposed to leave, so I came. Do you have a good reason for coming back? Let's hear it."

"Jacob told me if I came back I could make Dan remember. And he did," Adonia said with a smile.

"How about you, Jack?" Hurley asked.

"I came back here because I was broken," Jack said. "And I was stupid enough to think this place would fix me."

"Dude, I'm sorry."

"How much further, Hurley?" Adonia asked.

"It's not far," he answered. "Not far at all."

They came out on a beach and Hurley said, "It's right there."

Ahead of them was a huge lighthouse made of stone on the beach. "It's a lighthouse," Adonia noted, staring in awe.

"I don't understand," Jack said. "How is it that we've never seen it before?"

"Guess we weren't looking for it," Hurley replied.

They started walking towards it. Adonia turned back when she heard yelling coming from the jungle behind them and Dare came running out of the jungle.

"Dude, I told you you couldn't come," Hurley said, looking disappointed.

"Guess I couldn't help myself," Dare replied as she reached them. "So, what the hell is this? A lighthouse?"

"Beats me," Adonia said. She was grateful to see her friend again.

"Well, let's go find out," Dare replied with a smile.


	83. Mirrors

They reached the lighthouse and found a door. "Pretty cool, huh?" Hurley said.

"Jacob's in here?" Jack asked.

"I guess so," Hurley replied. "But first we have to go upstairs and turn this thing on." Hurley tried the handle to the door, but it wouldn't budge.

"It doesn't say anything on your arm about the door being jammed?" Adonia asked.

"No."

Jack kicked the door in. "After you," he said to Adonia with a smile. They reached the top of the lighthouse. There was a huge wheel lying parallel to the ground and big mirrors sitting vertically on top of it.

"Dude, this is cool," Hurley said. "They must have built this to help ships get here and stuff. I guess they used the mirror because electricity hadn't been invented."

"Where's Jacob?" Jack asked, unconcerned with the mirrors.

"Oh, he's not here yet. Let's get started," Hurley said. He looked at his arm. He went to a chain attached to the wheel and said, "Tell me when it gets to 108 degrees." He pulled the chain. A group of pulleys and gears started to pull the arrow on the wheel. Dare looked down at the wooden wheel and saw that each degree was marked with a name – many of them were crossed out.

"What do these mean?" Adonia asked, sliding her thumb across one of the names.

"No idea," Dare replied.

Jack looked up at the mirror and then behind him, seemingly confused.

"Stop!" Jack shouted suddenly. "Do you see that?" he asked. Jack was looking in the mirror again. All Dare or Adonia could see was the ocean reflected in the background.

"See what?" Adonia asked.

"The mirror," Jack said. "I saw something in the mirror." Jack moved and tried to get a better look at something.

"It's just the ocean," Dare said.

Jack looked down at the names on the wheel. "These are our names," he said. He found something on the wheel and said, "Turn it to 23 degrees!"

"I don't think Jacob wants-," Hurley started to say, but Jack grabbed the chain and started to turn it himself. Suddenly, instead of ocean, Dare could see a house reflected in the mirror. And judging by Adonia and Hurley's surprised looks, so could they.

"What is it?" Dare asked, getting closer to the mirror.

"It's my house," Jack said. "It's the house I grew up in."

"Huh. That's weird," Hurley said.

"I haven't lived in that house since I was a kid. He's been watching us. The whole time, all of us. He's been watching us! Hurley, where's Jacob?" Jack was starting to get angry and everyone sensed it.

"I don't know," Hurley answered.

"You said that he would be here!"

"Jack, calm down," Adonia said.

Jack ignored her. "Hurley, I want to know why he was watching me! I want to know, so you're going to ask him right now!"

"It doesn't work like that. I told you, he just kind of shows up whenever he feels like it."

Jack shook his head. He picked up a telescope that was lying on the ground and said, "Why was he watching me?"

"I don't know."

"Why is my name written down on this thing?"

"He didn't tell me."

"Why does he want from me?"

"All we're supposed to do-."

"What does he want from me?"

"I don't know, Jack!" Hurley shouted back.

Jack took the telescope and smashed in the mirrors. Glass flew everywhere and Dare and Adonia stepped back, frightened. Jack dropped the telescope.


	84. Too Late

"Do you think Jack's okay?" Adonia asked Dare. The two girls, Hurley, and Jack were now outside the lighthouse. Hurley was standing by the door and Jack was farther away sitting on a cliff, looking out at the ocean.

"I think Jack just needs some time to himself," Dare said. She and Adonia started walking away from the lighthouse until they heard Hurley say something. Dare turned back, about to ask what Hurley had just said until she realized he was talking to himself.

"He's talking to Jacob," Adonia said. "He has to be."

"What are you talking about? I don't see Jacob."

"Jacob's dead."

Dare froze. Jacob was dead? How? When? Why? Part of her was terrified – how could someone as powerful as Jacob die? And yet another part of her rejoiced. She had always partially blamed Brendon's death on Jacob, after all.

"Well, let's see what they're talking about," Dare said. Hurley had his back to them, so it wasn't hard sneaking up to eavesdrop. They stayed hidden around the corner of the lighthouse.

"Where were you, man?" Hurley asked, sounding upset. There was a pause. "Yeah, well, if you'd told me that and explained everything then maybe Jack wouldn't have freaked out and smashed the mirror into like a billion pieces. Thanks for the seven years of bad luck, by the way."

Adonia laughed and Dare elbowed her to make her quiet. Luckily, Hurley hadn't seemed to notice.

"I have ink on my forehead? That's all you have to say?" Hurley was mad now. "Jack broke your lighthouse, dude! Mission unaccomplished! Whoever you said we needed to help get to the island is totally screwed!"

Dare frowned and Adonia shrugged. Who was coming to the island?

"So, everything you wanted me to do didn't get done and you didn't even care?" Hurley asked. "Why?" Another pause. "Well, if that was your plan, I think it backfired, man."

There was a much longer pause. Dare ached to know what Jacob was saying. Finally, Hurley said, "Well, next time, how about you tell me everything up front? I'm not big on secret plans, okay?" A pause. "What? Why?" He sounded panicked. "Dude, we have to warn them! … What do you mean it's too late?"

Adonia stepped out from behind the lighthouse. "Hurley, what's the matter?" Hurley turned around and said, "What? Oh. Nothing. I was just… talking to myself."

"No, you weren't. You were talking to Jacob. What happened, Hurley? You seem upset." Adonia went over to him. Dare knew she was only trying to get information from him, but she had to admire Adonia's ability to come off as nurturing.

"Well, Jacob said that it didn't matter about the lighthouse. He said he was just trying to get Jack and you and me away from the Temple."

"What? Why?"

"Because, um, the Temple got attacked?"

"_What?" _Adonia's panic was imminent and dangerous.

"Jacob said… he said it was too late."


	85. To the Rescue

Adonia was running deftly through the jungle, Dare close behind. "Adonia, stop!" Dare called after her. "It's too dangerous!" Adonia stopped abruptly and Dare almost ran straight into her.

"Dan is there," Adonia said harshly. "If anything happened…"

Dare nodded. "All right. But... you're going the wrong way. Let me lead, okay?" Dare started quickly through the jungle toward the Temple. It was a couple hours' walk there. They could make it in an hour if they hurried, but it would be dark by then and they didn't have any torches or flashlights.


	86. Daniel's Tragedy

They were almost there. Night had fallen, but Dare could still see a little with the full moon at their backs. "Duck!" Dare hissed suddenly at Adonia. They hid behind some underbrush just as some people and torches passed by about ten feet away.

"It's Miles," Adonia whispered to Dare. Dare strained her eyes and could just make him out.

"Who are the rest?" Dare asked.

"No idea. Wait. Is that Sun?"

"Only one way to find out," Dare said. She stood and walked over to them.

"Dare?" Miles said as she walked into the light.

"Hey, Miles."

Adonia stepped forward after Dare and raised a hand in hello. "Adonia," Frank said. "Where the hell did you guys come from?"

"What happened?" Adonia asked. There were obviously more pressing matters at hand. "At the Temple. What happened?"

"It's Locke," Sun said stepping forward.

"I'm sorry, what? Locke's dead," Dare said.

"Yes. He is," Sun replied. "That monster – the giant pillar of black smoke – looks like Locke now. He… attacked the Temple."

"Which way?" Adonia asked.

"You're kidding, right?" Miles asked, looking at her like she was crazy.

"We barely escaped," some girl Dare recognized from the plane said.

"Which way is it, Dare?" Dare hesitated, but pointed towards what she knew was the front entrance to the Temple.

Adonia turned on her heel and walked off in the direction Dare had pointed. To everyone's surprise, Frank was the one who followed after her.

"Adonia, stop," Frank said, catching up to her.

"Frank?" Adonia asked, turning back to him. He was carrying a torch, so she wasn't complaining, but she was still a little weirded out.

"Don't go back there," he said. "It's too dangerous. I've seen what that thing can do and if…" He trailed off.

Adonia shook her head. "I'm sorry. I have to. Dan is in there. I've spent the last ten years of my life trying to get him back and now that I have him, I'm not going to lose him again." She started walking again. She knew the entrance had to be close as the trees were starting to thin out. To her surprise, Frank continued to follow her.

She found the entrance and opened the door. The stench of death was strong and it made her skin crawl. She turned to Frank and held her hand out for the torch. "Could I?" she asked.

He obliged, handing her the torch. Everything was eerily silent throughout the once-busy courtyard. She held her breath as the light from the torch passed over the grave faces of people she barely recognized from the Temple. Blood stained the dirt everywhere she stepped. She felt nauseous, but she pushed on anyway.

"Adonia," she heard. She whipped around and ran towards the voice. Dan was sitting with his back against a big boulder. His hands gripped his side where he was bleeding profusely. She shoved the torch into the ground next to him and took in his predicament. It wasn't good.

"Hey," she said, teary-eyed.

"Hi," he replied with a slight smile. It quickly turned into a cringe as he gripped his side harder. His breath was shallow and his voice was weak.

"I know where Jack is," Adonia said, trying to sound as cheerful as possible. "He's coming back and he'll fix you up, okay?"

"Don't," Dan said. "It's too late, Addie."

"Don't say that," she replied. A tear fell.

He put a hand on her cheek and wiped the trail away. "I love you." His eyes closed.

"Dan? Dan. Daniel, no. Don't go. Please don't." She held his hand to her chest and cried.

She didn't know how much time passed, but it seemed like an eternity. It was like the earth stopped turning and it didn't matter what happened next. Nothing mattered anymore. She vaguely remembered a hand on her shoulder and being pried away from Dan. The next thing she remembered was walking back through the jungle with Frank – his arm around her shoulder as he patiently guiding her back to the group.


	87. Back to the Beginning

Dare had convinced the group to wait twenty minutes for Adonia before moving on. Lucky they did because Ben soon came running through the jungle to join them.

"Where's Jarrah?" the girl asked Ben as he joined them, out of breath. Her name, Dare figured out, was Ilana, and she'd been a sort of bodyguard for Jacob.

"I'm fine, thank you," Ben replied sarcastically.

"Where is he?" she asked again.

"Considering that he just killed Dogen, I don't think he's going to be joining us," Ben answered.

"Who's Dogen?" Sun asked.

"The guy who's in charge at the Temple," Dare replied. She frowned at Ben. Was he lying? Sayid had seemed a bit off, but he wasn't about to go killing people for no reason.

"Sayid killed the interpreter, too," Ben said.

"Are you sure?" Ilana asked.

"He was standing over their dead bodies holding a bloody dagger. So yeah, I'm pretty sure."

The limited light made it hard for Dare to read his face, but she was pretty sure he was telling the truth.

"You said we'd be safe at the Temple," Sun said to Ilana.

"That's what I was told," she replied.

"Well, what about the beach?" Ben suggested.

"What beach?" Ilana asked.

"Where we buried Locke. Where they lived." He looked at Sun and then Dare. "At least we'll have the water at our backs and it's familiar territory. Anyone else got a better idea?"

"No," Ilana said. "The beach it is."

Just as they decided on a destination, Dare heard footsteps and soon a torchlight could be seen through the trees. Frank and Adonia stepped into the light.

Adonia wasn't crying, which may have been good news for anyone who didn't know Adonia like Dare did. No tears meant that whatever just happened couldn't be overcome by simply crying – it was something much worse. Which could only mean one thing; Daniel was dead.

Dare embraced her friend. Adonia barely hugged her back, though knowing someone was there for her definitely brought her back enough to function.

"Everyone's dead," Adonia said softly.

"I'm so sorry, Addie. God, I'm so sorry," was all Dare could say. She knew something like this wasn't going to be fixed by anything anyone had to say – it took time, and even then Adonia might never be the same.

"Have we decided where we're going, because one thing's for sure – that Temple is not what you said it was," Frank said, looking at Ilana.

"We're going to the beach," Dare replied. "It's that way." She pointed to their right and they started their journey through the jungle.


End file.
